Building on the one-year anniversary of Pope Francis’s historic address to Congress last September, over 120 alumni of Jesuit law schools delivered a letter on Sept. 21 to Congressional leadership and the offices of Jesuit-educated members of Congress, calling for passage of bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation. The signatories noted deficiencies in the current system, including disproportionate sentences as a result of mandatory minimums, individuals returning from jail and prison inadequately prepared to re-enter society and the nation’s reliance on the justice system to respond to problems of drug addiction, poverty, mental illness and joblessness. The United States currently represents 5 percent of the global population but 25 percent of the total global prison population.
Demand for Justice
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
This week on “The Spiritual Life,” Father James Martin speaks with former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg about faith, fatherhood and his “Jesuit background.”
In ‘Where is the Friend’s House?,’ we see the faces of the Iranian people captured with sensitivity and detail.
Among those recognized at two theology conferences in June was Stephen Bevans, S.V.D., to whom the Catholic Theological Society of America gave its highest honor, the John Courtney Murray Award.
“Keeping our gaze on Jesus, we must learn to give a name and voice even to sadness, fear, anguish, indignation, bringing everything into relationship with God,” Pope Leo said.