Ms_Armstrong !'s List: CST - Life & Death

• As Catholics, we need to ask the following: How can we restore our respect for law and life? How can we protect and rebuild communities, confront crime without vengeance, and defend life without taking life?
• New approaches must move beyond the slogans of the moment (such as "three strikes and you're out") and the excuses of the past (such as "criminals are simply trapped by their background"). Crime, corrections, and the search for real community require far more than the policy clichés of conservatives and liberals.

  • Move beyond lib/cons
• A Catholic approach begins with the recognition that the dignity of the human person applies to both victim and offender
• current trend of more prisons and more executions, with too little education and drug treatment, does not truly reflect Christian values and will not really leave our communities safe
• • Explore aspects of crime and punishment in our society
     
  • Examine the implications of the Church's teaching for crime and punishment
     
  • Apply principles of Catholic social teaching to the criminal justice system and suggest some directions for policy on crime and punishment
     
  • Encourage action by Catholics to shape new alternatives
• even if the death penalty were proven to be a deterrent to crime, the Catholic bishops would still oppose its use because there are alternative means to protect society available to us today.
  
• A fundamental moral measure of the criminal justice system is how it responds to those harmed by crime. T
• But public debate rarely encourages serious dialogue about the costs of incarceration versus less costly alternatives, such as prevention, education, community efforts, and drug treatment.
• studies confirm that the racism and discrimination that continue to haunt our nation are reflected in similar ways in the criminal justice system.
• Prison inmates have high rates of substance abuse, illiteracy, and mental illness.
• drug treatment is a very cost-effective method to reduce substance abuse and crime.²⁴ The savings to tax payers from quality substance abuse treatment versus imprisonment is significant (three to one in a recent RAND Corporation study)
• punishment must have clear purposes: protecting society and rehabilitating those who violate the law.
  

• The four traditional elements of the sacrament of Penance have much to teach us about taking responsibility, making amends, and reintegrating into community:
   
   

  • Contrition: Genuine sorrow, regret, or grief over one's wrongs and a serious resolution not to repeat the wrong
     
  • Confession: Clear acknowledgment and true acceptance of responsibility for the hurtful behavior
     
  • Satisfaction: The external sign of one's desire to amend one's life (this "satisfaction," whether in the form of prayers or good deeds, is a form of "compensation" or restitution for the wrongs or harms caused by one's sin)
     
  • Absolution: After someone has shown contrition, acknowledged his or her sin, and offered satisfaction, then Jesus, through the ministry of the priest and in the company of the church community, forgives the sin and welcomes that person back into "communion"
• Sometimes people who lack adequate resources from early in life (i.e., children—especially those who have been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused—the mentally ill, and people who have suffered discrimination) turn to lives of crime in desperation or out of anger or confusion.
• However, punishment for its own sake is not a Christian response to crime. Punishment must have a purpose. It must be coupled with treatment and, when possible, restitution.
• Rejecting simplistic solutions such as "three strikes and you're out" and rigid mandatory sentencing.
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  • Promoting serious efforts toward crime prevention and poverty reduction.
• Fighting poverty, educating children, and supporting families are essential anti-crime strategies.
• Challenging the culture of violence and encouraging a culture of life.
• cultural values
• education
• strong and principled opposition to the death penalty.
• Increasing reliance on the death penalty diminishes us and is a sign of growing disrespect for human life. We cannot overcome crime by simply executing criminals, nor can we restore the lives of the innocent by ending the lives of those convicted of their murders. The death penalty offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life
• Offering victims the opportunity to participate more fully in the criminal justice process.
• general support for legislation to respond to the needs and the rights of victims, and we urge every state to strengthen victims' advocacy programs.
• Encouraging innovative programs of restorative justice that provide the opportunity for mediation between victims and offenders and offer restitution for crimes committed.
• This shift in focus affirms the hurt and loss of the victim, as well as the harm and fear of the community, and insists that offenders come to grips with the consequences of their actions.
• These approaches are not "soft on crime" because they specifically call the offender to face victims and the communities. This experience offers victims a much greater sense of peace and accountability. Offenders who are willing to face the human consequences of their actions are more ready to accept responsibility, make reparations, and rebuild their lives.
• victim-offender mediation.
• impact panel.
• panels bring together victims and offenders who have been involved in similar crimes and can assist the victim's healing, the community's understanding of the crime, and the offender's sense of responsibility.
• Insisting that punishment has a constructive and rehabilitative purpose.
• We call upon government to redirect the vast amount of public resources away from building more and more prisons and toward better and more effective programs aimed at crime prevention, rehabilitation, education efforts, substance abuse treatment, and programs of probation, parole, and reintegration.
• Renewed emphasis should be placed on parole and probation systems as alternatives to incarceration, especially for non-violent offenders.
• Freeing up prison construction money to bolster these systems should be a top priority.
• Programs in jails and prisons that offer offenders education, life skills, religious expression, and recovery from substance abuse greatly reduce recidivism, benefit society, and help the offenders when they reintegrate into the community.
• We bishops question whether private, for-profit corporations can effectively run prisons.
• we oppose the increasing use of isolation units,
• Encouraging Spiritual Healing and Renewal for those who commit crime.
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  • Making a serious commitment to confront the pervasive role of addiction and mental illness in crime.
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    We need to address the underlying problems that in turn attract drug users into an illegal economy—lack of employment, poverty, inadequate education, family disintegration, lack of purpose and meaning, poor housing, and powerlessness and greed.
• one third of inmates are jailed for drug-related crime
• Drug courts
• Treating immigrants justly.
• Placing crime in a community context and building on promising alternatives that empower neighborhoods and towns to restore a sense of security.
• One successful community strategy is Boston's Ten Point Coalition, which is credited with reducing juvenile gun deaths, over a several-year period, from epidemic proportions to near zero. This strategy requires a close relationship among religious leaders and law enforcement and court officials, as well as a pervasive presence of people of faith on the streets offering outreach, opportunities for education, and supervised recreation to at-risk youth.
• "broken-window" model
• low-cost, high-visibility effort can be effective in preventing crime.
• Community policing and neighborhood-watch groups

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• The authors find that child maltreatment roughly doubles the probability that an individual engages in many types of crime.
• authors find that child maltreatment roughly doubles the probability that an individual engages in many types of crime
• potential explanation for the large effects is that children who experience maltreatment start engaging in crime earlier,
• Estimates suggest that the crime induced by abuse costs society about $6.7 billion per year at the low end and up to $62.5 billion at the high end.

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• unavailability of federal child welfare funding for programs and services known to be effective at reducing incidences of child abuse and neglect.
• economic costs associated with child abuse and neglect rose to a staggering $103.8 billion in 2007, merely ten percent of federal money dedicated for child welfare, approximately $741.9 million, can currently be used to prevent child abuse and neglect from occurring by strengthening families.
• The $103.8 billion cost of child abuse and neglect includes more than $33 billion in direct costs for foster care services, hospitalization, mental health treatment, and law enforcement.  Indirect costs of over $70 billion include loss of productivity, as well as expenditures related to chronic health problems, special education, and the criminal justice system.
  
• greater focus on prevention will decrease both the short and long-term costs to society. 

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• KEY FINDING - Ms_Armstrong ! on 2011-10-21