Date: Thursday, March 26th
Scripture: 1 Peter 3:9
“Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” 
By: Sue Wooley, Harrisburg Friends Meeting
Justice. How would Jesus define that word? “An eye for an eye…”? No. Jesus tells us to “turn the other cheek” when offended. It seems clear that he meant at the very least, “do no further harm”. At best, I believe he would have us love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. Tall order, yes – but doable if we stop and think.
Today, our criminal justice system (from arrest to trial to incarceration to parole) is predicated on the “eye for an eye” interpretation of justice. “Do the crime, do the time” some have said. Sounds logical. Very neat. But the problem is that this understanding of justice doesn’t work very well. It is very expensive (in both dollars and in lost human potential), makes us less safe, and, perhaps most importantly, entirely ignores Jesus’ teaching. There’s a growing trend and body of evidence which calls for something called “Restorative Justice” which replaces the emphasis on punishment with an emphasis on healing as the objective of justice. While punitive justice may provide a temporary sense of satisfaction for the victims of crime (ultimately all of us), it does not foster healing. Micah and Jesus are pointing us toward a restorative rather than a punitive model for justice.
Consider the following story to understand how Restorative Justice works. Two boys pummeled a young tree in the schoolyard with baseball bats and killed the tree. The teacher, a lover of trees, was horrified. Rather than punish them, she made them memorize Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees”, meet and apologize to the individual who donated the tree to the school, and told them they must help the original tree-giver replant a new tree. This is a simple example of restorative justice. The offenders learned something about the harm their actions caused to someone else (not just the tree) and were given an opportunity to set it right. This works neatly with crimes involving damage to property. Crimes that physically harm people are more complicated, but overwhelming evidence shows that the principle still works. Germany and Norway use restorative justice successfully for ALL crimes. The teacher in my example did justly, showed mercy to those boys, and walked humbly with her God. She made things better. Let’s do that, too.
Prayer: Lord, your form of Justice is restorative. May we be delivered from our desires for vengeance and instead yield to your restorative Justice. Amen.
Criminal Justice Fact: Preventative Segregation, Investigative Segregation, Protective Custody, and Transitional Segregation are all forms of Administrative Solitary Confinement.
Action: Watch this Ted Talk about conditions at the US Federal Government’s only Supermax prison, ADX https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_rovner_what_happens_to_people_in_solitary_confinement#t-712893
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