mass incarceration
No justice in New Haven
Journalist Nicholas Dawidoff tells the tragic story of Bobby Johnson and his neighborhood on the poor, Black side of town.
Why was the apostle Paul in prison so often?
Perhaps for the same reasons people are today.
by Sarah Jobe
What mercy in the criminal justice system could look like
What if all were extended the gift of a second chance?
Working within neighborhoods to end mass incarceration
"By building social capacity, communities can respond to their own issues rather than rely on responses from the criminal justice system."
Elizabeth Palmer interviews Leon Sawh
A first step toward treating offenders like humans
The new criminal justice law is modest. But it may signal a shifting narrative.
From the psych hospital to the jail
Two new books provide a devastating vision of America’s mental health crisis.
The questions private prisons raise
Is private management more efficient? Is it wrong to profit from punishment? Is the whole idea immoral in concept?
Encountering the Gerasene demoniac in an American prison
Incarceration is a tomb. It beats death into people.
The role of county prosecutors in mass incarceration
John Pfaff's Locked In adds to what we've learned from Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow.
by Amy Levad
Gregory Ellison II, Michelle Alexander, and Matthew Desmond share a red vinyl booth
Who I'd invite to my writers' dinner party
White moral infantilism and some help avoiding it
Several recent films and shows portray people of color with a complexity that James Baldwin once assumed was impossible for pop culture.
From school to prison
For some kids, jail is a school field trip. For others, it's nearly inevitable.
Exchanging letters with people in hell
My state has the same number of churches as prisoners. This fact haunts me.
by Chris Hoke
What race riots accomplish
Some riots protest injustice. Others perpetuate it.
A prisoner for every church
Here in Washington State, there is roughly the same number of churches as there are prisoners.
Why should you support the #SentencingReform and corrections Act of 2015?
Though most of the American churches in the past failed to be a people that manifested the kingdom of God in society during racialized chattel slavery, as well as during Jim Crow white supremacy, we have the opportunity to repent and live into a new and more Jesus-shaped story, being a people that do what God requires; doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before our God. (Micah 6:8)
Repenting for our prisons
Imprisonment in this country is long on punishment and shamefully short on rehabilitation.
Caught, by Marie Gottschalk
Marie Gottschalk describes an American penal system that has all but abandoned any real attempt to rehabilitate its inmates.
reviewed by Timothy Mark Renick
Pot and public health
The "war on drugs" approach to marijuana has had major costs. But the dawning era of legal marijuana presents its own set of public health problems.