New Crime Responses Proposed
By Editorial Staff
Published September 1, 1989
By Colson & Van Ness
WASHINGTON, D.C. (FR) – In an indictment of the nation’s criminal justice system, two experts working in the field have called for a dramatic overhaul of the way America punishes offenders.
Former “law and order” presidential aide and Watergate figure Charles W. Colson, now chairman of Prison Fellowship ministries; and attorney Daniel Van Ness, head of Justice Fellowship (an advocacy group promoting reforms in the criminal justice system), have co-authored a book attacking America’s current system of justice and introducing a new concept which they say would revolutionize the way we look at crime and punish its perpetrators.
“The criminal justice system in America is on the brink of incoherence,” the authors argue in Convicted: New Hope For Ending America’s Crime Crisis (Crossway). “Not even those who run it defend it. It is a joke to criminals, a mystery to victims, a scandal to taxpayers.”
Grim prison statistics point to a seemingly hopeless situation. In mid-1988, there were 604,824 prisoners in America; 83 percent more than in 1980. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency forecasts that prison populations will increase by 50 percent in the next 10 years. Yet prison construction has not kept pace, resulting in severe overcrowding situations – federal prisons are as much as 73 percent over capacity, while state prisons operate between 105 to 120 percent of capacity.
“We need prisons for dangerous offenders,” Colson and Van Ness agree. “But nearly half the people who are in prison today are there for nonviolent offenses. According to Department of Justice figures, it costs an average of $80,000 to build a maximum security cell, and an average of $15,900 a year to house a prisoner there. The nonviolent offender should be working in community service, paying back those he wronged, learning to contribute as a responsible member of society rather than sitting idly in an expensive prison cell, growing bored and bitter and plotting his next crime.”
Colson and Van Ness challenge the existing system with an ambitious plan which they call Restorative Justice. These principles form the foundation of Restorative Justice:
1. Crime causes injuries that must be repaired.
2. All parties affected by crime should be included in the response to crime.
3. Government and local communities must play cooperative and complementary roles.
Programs around the country are already demonstrating the effectiveness of Restorative Justice. Prison Fellowship has for nine years conducted Community Service Projects, in which nondangerous prisoners are furloughed to repair the homes of needy or disabled individuals. All parties involved benefit from this arrangement: the prisoners contribute a worthwhile service to the community, the residents’ homes are repaired, and the community gains a new perspective of the offenders. Such community programs are far less expensive to operate than incarceration, with many gaining revenue to support themselves.
The U.S. imprisons more people per capita than any nation in the world except the Soviet Union and South Africa. And yet, Colson and Van Ness contend, America’s prison experiment is not working. The “lock ‘em up and throw away the key mentality” that gets public officials elected has resulted in overcrowded prisons.
“If we really want to get tough on crime, let’s hold offenders accountable to their victims,” the authors conclude. “Let’s reserve prisons for hardened criminals (where they can be incarcerated for longer periods of time), and let’s put nonviolent offenders to work. Let’s give victims a meaningful say in the justice process, and let’s put community resources to the task of binding the wounds caused by crime.”
Forerunner - Home » The Forerunner Newspaper » Government
Your comments are welcome!
The Abortion Matrix: Defeating Child Sacrifice and the Culture of Death (DVD)
Download the free Study Guide!
Is there a connection between pagan religion and the abortion industry?
This powerful presentation traces the biblical roots of child sacrifice and then delves into the social, political and cultural fall-out that this sin against God and crime against humanity has produced in our beleaguered society.
Conceived as a sequel and update to the 1988 classic, The Massacre of Innocence, the new title, The Abortion Matrix, is entirely fitting. It not only references abortion’s specific target – the sacred matrix where human beings are formed in the womb in the very image of God, but it also implies the existence of a conspiracy, a matrix of seemingly disparate forces that are driving this holocaust.
The occult activity surrounding the abortion industry is exposed with numerous examples. But are these just aberrations, bizarre yet anomalous examples of abortionists who just happen to have ties to modern day witchcraft? Or is this representative of something deeper, more sinister and even endemic to the entire abortion movement?
As the allusion to the film of over a decade ago suggests, the viewer may learn that things are not always as they appear to be. The Abortion Matrix reveals the reality of child-killing and strikes the proper moral chord to move hearts to fulfill the biblical responsibility to rescue those unjustly sentenced to death and to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 24:11,12; 31:8,9).
Speakers include: George Grant, Peter Hammond, RC Sproul Jr., Paul Jehle, Lou Engle, Rusty Thomas, Flip Benham, Janet Porter and many more.
Ten parts, over three hours of instruction!
Running Time: 195 minutes
$19.95 — ORDER NOW!
(We accept all major credit cards and PayPal.)Click here for more information
Abortion Clinic 911 Calls (DVD)
Exposes the Dangers of Abortion to Women!
These shocking eyewitness accounts expose the dangers of abortion not only to unborn children, but to the health and lives women as well. An antidote to the smokescreens of the liberal media, these six short clips show what really happens in and around abortion clinics.
Although the content is emotionally gut-wrenching, these videos have been used in church seminars and small groups to educate Christians on the abortion issue and to lead people toward a pro-life position.
Watch these pro-life videos on-line.
“These videos helped change my mind from pro-choice to pro-life. Your videos are what did it for me. I will be walking in next year’s March For Life in San Francisco.” — A. Jackson, California
“I was going to have an abortion until I saw your video. Praise Jesus!”
— M. Drew, YouTube Commenter
$4.95 — ORDER NOW!
(We accept all major credit cards and PayPal.)Click here for more information
Freedom: The Model of Christian Liberty (DVD)
“Give me liberty or give me death!”
Patrick Henry’s famous declaration not only helped launch the War for Independence, it also perfectly summarized the mindset that gave birth to, and sustained, the unprecedented experiment in Christian liberty that was America.
The freedom our Founders envisioned was not freedom from suffering, want, or hard work. Nor was it freedom to indulge every appetite or whim without restraint—that would merely be servitude to a different master. No, the Founders’ passion was to live free before God, unfettered by the chains of autocracy, shackles that slowly but inexorably bind men when the governments they fashion fail to recognize and uphold freedom’s singular, foundational truth: that all men are created in the image of God, and are thereby co-equally endowed with the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
This presentation is a similar call, not to one but many. By reintroducing the principles of freedom that gave birth to America, it is our prayer that Jesus, the true and only ruler over the nations, will once again be our acknowledged Sovereign, that we may again know and exult in the great truth that “where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17).
Welcome to the Second American Revolution!
This DVD features “Liberty: The Model of Christian Liberty” along with “Dawn’s Early Light: A Brief History of America’s Christian Foundations.” Bonus features include a humorous but instructive collection of campaign ads and Eric Holmberg’s controversial YouTube challenge concerning Mitt Romney’s campaign for president.
$14.95 — ORDER NOW!
(We accept all major credit cards and PayPal.)Click here for more information
Dr. Francis Schaeffer - A Christian Manifesto (DVD)
That Swiss Hermit Strikes Again!
Dr. Schaeffer, who was one of the most influential Christian thinkers in the twentieth century, shows that secular humanism has displaced the Judeo-Christian consensus that once defined our nation’s moral boundaries. Law, education, and medicine have all been reshaped for the worse as a consequence. America’s dominant worldview changed, Schaeffer charges, when Christians weren’t looking.
Schaeffer lists two reasons for evangelical indifference: a false concept of spirituality and fear. He calls on believers to stand against the tyranny and moral chaos that come when humanism reigns-and warns that believers may, at some point, be forced to make the hard choice between obeying God or Caesar. A Christian Manifesto is a thought-provoking and bracing Christian analysis of American culture and the obligation Christians have to engage the culture with the claims of Christ.
$19.95 — ORDER NOW!
(We accept all major credit cards and PayPal.)Click here for more information
The Real Jesus: A Defense of the Historicity and Divinity of Christ (DVD)
Who is the Real Jesus?
Ever since the dawn of modern rationalism, skeptics have sought to use textual criticism, archeology and historical reconstructions to uncover the “historical Jesus” — a wise teacher who said many wonderful things, but fulfilled no prophecies, performed no miracles and certainly did not rise from the dead in triumph over sin.
Over the past 100 years, however, startling discoveries in biblical archeology and scholarship have all but vanquished the faulty assumptions of these doubting modernists. Regrettably, these discoveries have often been ignored by the skeptics as well as by the popular media. As a result, the liberal view still holds sway in universities and impacts the culture and even much of the church.
The Real Jesus explodes the myths of these critics and the movies, books and television programs that have popularized their views. Presented in ten parts — perfect for individual, family and classroom study — viewers will be challenged to go deeper in their knowledge of Christ in order to be able to defend their faith and present the truth to a skeptical modern world – that the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jesus of history — “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). He is the real Jesus.
Speakers include: George Grant, Ted Baehr, Stephen Mansfield, Raymond Ortlund, Phil Kayser, David Lutzweiler, Jay Grimstead, J.P. Holding, and Eric Holmberg.
Ten parts, over two hours of instruction!
Running Time: 130 minutes
$19.95 — ORDER NOW!
(We accept all major credit cards and PayPal.)
