Justice reform is going to be a hot topic in 2017.
Congress was back in session this past Tuesday. House Speaker Paul Ryan quickly addressed justice reform.
“We intend to pick up where we left off and get moving again on criminal justice reform,” Ryan said during this week’s news briefing. “I think it’s good policy, [and] the right thing to do.”
President Obama has also urged Congress to pass bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation.
“There is a growing consensus across the U.S. political spectrum that the extent of incarceration in the United States is not just unnecessary but also unsustainable,” Obama writes in his commentary “The President’s Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform” for the Harvard Law Review. “And it is not making our communities safer.”
THE IMPACT OF JUSTICE AND PRISON REFORM
These remarks come after Department of Justice Bureau of Statistics released new information on declining crime and incarceration rates in America. The report affirms the impact of justice and prison reform.
"This report validates our work and the progress that we have made. It is a call to action to seek more evidence-based reforms in the states and federal government,” says Craig DeRoche, Prison Fellowship®'s senior vice president of advocacy and public policy. "The values of our faith have been demonstrated time and again to be effective in advancing justice that restores."
Prison Fellowship believes in a restorative approach to crime and incarceration that recognized human dignity and promotes justice and restored communities.
Prison Fellowship is looking forward to what 2017 brings. Our Faith and Justice Fellowship will continue to work together to promote justice reform at both a state and federal level. The Faith and Justice Fellowship is a bipartisan group of governors, state legislators, and members of Congress.
We invite you to join us as we advocate for restorative justice and prison reform. Please visit our justice reform page to find out how you can become an advocate and “remember those in prison.”