Redemption and Restoration A Catholic Perspective on Restorative Justice

Written with the goals of educating about restorative justice and inspiring hope, this text is a great resource for readers who are just diving into the topic. Those connected to the criminal legal system, prison ministry groups, or justice-based parish book clubs will also find each chapter ripe with content for reflection.

This book is a real gem. The book challenges citizens of the United States to move from a punishing system to a forgiving process of restorative justice. It gives a practical process for change and multiple examples of individuals and groups who have already begun to build a more biblical and humane system.

It is vitally important that we cultivate compassion and mercy in our relationships with one another and with those on the margins. We must stand with our brothers and sisters who know the deep wounds of crime and incarceration and who, too often, are disregarded and forgotten in our society. Restorative justice shows us a path toward true kinship and this book offers great wisdom for how the Church can be a beacon for reconciliation, healing and hope in a hurting world.

The contributors to this much-needed volume propose that Catholics and others should both broaden and deepen our understanding of justice, integrating its varied forms (retributive justice, commutative justice, distributive justice, and social justice) so as to include and be reoriented toward restorative justice. Indeed, to borrow an adjective from recent popes, including Pope Francis, I would say this important endeavor exemplifies an integral justice that will help readers to promote and practice a just peace for all who are affected by crime in their communities.

Those of us who work in the criminal justice environment know that it is broken, a system where issues of race, poverty, even geography, ensure that the playing field is anything but equal. We need to change how this system works if we are to end the warehousing and killing of our own citizens. That's where restorative justice-and this book!-come in. Restorative justice is a powerful tool that transforms our understanding of crime and shifts our focus from "broken laws" to damaged human relationships and the harm done to human dignity.

In an era of mass incarceration, the American criminal justice system has become an unforgiving, heartbreaking place where optimism goes to die. Redemption and Restoration offers an inspiring alternative that focuses on restoring victims, protecting the community and providing offenders with opportunity to change. This is a timely and important book that embraces the power of hope and allows for the possibility of reconciliation and justice. One finishes the book with a sense of urgency. We can't wait any longer to end this war against ourselves, and restore trust and hope to our system of justice.

Bridges To Life brings together incarcerated offenders, victims of crime, and community volunteers in a restorative, faith-based process. The program has been active in 120 prisons across 12 states and five foreign countries. Among our 36,000 graduates, the rate of recidivism is 60% lower than the national average. There is a great demand for our involvement in transforming individual lives and the overall culture in prisons. The statistics and stories overwhelmingly prove that restorative justice works. I am so pleased to see this book with such comprehensive wisdom and information about restorative justice.

In my experience, most middle-class American Catholics assume restorative justice is pie-in-the-sky liberalism barely supportable by facts, let alone by Church teaching and tradition. The collaborators of this work thoroughly disabuse the reader of such faulty notions, demonstrating that restorative justice is the justice of Scripture, is the justice illuminated by Catholic teaching and tradition, and is effective. In the face of a revenge-based criminal justice system that is morally bankrupt and threatens to financially bankrupt our entire society, we no longer have the option to muddle through. We can either follow after the revenge-pandering politicians, like lemmings rushing over the cliffs of ruin, or adhere to the moral authority of the Church and the Scriptures calling us to a different way: restorative justice.