This week in PCUSA Mission:
Criminal Justice Sunday
Hans Hallundbaek and Un Ngo
Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them.
—Hebrews 13:3a
Let us, on this Criminal Justice Sunday, be reminded of these sad facts:
• That our country is the world’s leader in incarcerating our own.
• That the United States of America, which holds 5 percent of the world’s population, holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.
• That the vast majority of people incarcerated in our country are from poor, inner-city neighborhoods and are of predominantly African-American and Latino descent.
Let us be reminded also that our stance on punish-ment is in sharp contrast to our Christian gospel’s redemptive message of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation, as expressed in Luke 4:18; and that our salvation, individually and collectively, is linked to our treatment of those in prison, as declared in Matthew 25:41–43.
Society’s stance on criminal justice is historically a pendulum swinging between restorative and pun-itive. Our country is long overdue for prison re-form based upon rehabilitative and restorative principles, as practiced in other developed cultures with which we compare ourselves. This should in-clude the “Mandela Rules,” reflecting the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the abolition of for-profit prisons and an end to capital punishment.