HIGH SPIRITS: Divine Justice
Aitken, Jonathan
HIGH SPIRITS Divine Justice by Jonathan Aitken HAT IS JUSTICE? That sounds like the topic for a school essay. Yet in the marketplace of spiritual ideas, faith-based solutions and religious...
...JONATHAN AITK their victims...
...He is the author of seven books, including the award-winning Nixon: A Life...
...The most impressive data comes from Sugarland and three other faith-based prisons in the United States, all of which immerse their inmates in Restorative Justice principles as part of a full time educational regime centered on Christian teaching...
...What evidence is there that they work...
...To switch from being probable repeat offenders, criminals need to alter their mindsets...
...The idea that God could bring this about is, of course, anathema to atheists and secularists, some of whom are fighting it tooth and nail, including a lawsuit charging IFI prisons with violating church-state separation...
...But do they stop crime or change criminals...
...It was Colson who persuaded then- Governor Bush to back the Texas project, whose success the President often cites when he talks of his administration's broader national Faith Based Solutions Initiative...
...Today that prison—Sugarland, near Houston—boasts a repeat offending rate for released inmates below 15 percent, according to a recent University of Pennsylvania study...
...Jonathan Aitken is a former British MP and cabinet minister...
...Contrast that with what happens in traditional "retributive" justice...
...Many texts can be cited, but the best is the story of Zaccheus, the corrupt tax collector...
...There is enough positive evidence already for the idea of Restorative Justice to fire up Christian enthusiasts and set liberal secularists' teeth gnashing...
...prison based on Restorative Justice principles...
...While we wait for the official statisticians to weigh in, there is enough positive evidence already for the idea of Restorative Justice to fire up Christian enthusiasts and set liberal secularists' teeth gnashing...
...The local community is not in the picture at all...
...It is only on the factory floor of crime—in prisons, first and foremost—that it becomes clear why and how it actually works...
...If the prisons are to be a new 21st century battlefield for spiritual warfare, I know whose side I'm on...
...Since most convicted criminals interact only with the state—police, the courts, the prisons—many serve their sentences without a scintilla of awareness, let alone compassion, for the victims of their crimes...
...After an encounter with Jesus (see Luke 19: 1-10) he publicly apologizes for his crimes in front of the local community and restores all the money he had cheated from his victims...
...Those kinds of results are making even the least spiritual politicians sit up and take notice, as 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 2003 they contemplate the failure of old-fashioned "lock 'em up and throw away the key" in terms of cutting crime or recidivism rates...
...their most common crime is house burglary, a nasty and largely nocturnal form of robbery that often traumatizes its elderly and lonely victims...
...Even those who do recognize it may be surprised to learn that America's 43rd President has been among its pioneers, back in 1997 when as governor of Texas he opened the first U.S...
...When a crime is committed the offender is punished by the state...
...This is a faith-based solution, rooted in the Bible...
...ESTORATIVE Justice schemes work best with young offenders...
...By itself, "Restorative Justice" will mean nothing to 99 percent of the American public...
...I did some (involuntary) research into this aspect of the criminal mind during the seven months I spent in prison for perjury during 1999 and 2000...
...OCTOBER 2003 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 43...
...Encouraged by funding from Tony Blair's Home Office, more than 40 British police forces, probation services, and prisons now are running Restorative Justice programs...
...But most convicted burglars believe they have committed a mere crime against property—with no human implications...
...Restorative Justice's main plank is compelling offenders to try to repair the harm done to Restorative Justice's main plank is compelling offenders to try to repair the harm done to their victims...
...Such encounters can be angry, emotionally charged, even heart rending...
...But no amount of practical success can obscure the idea's spiritual antecedents...
...Although caricatured by the tabloid press with headlines like "Say sorry and you can come out of jail," the best of these are tough and demanding...
...Such a claim might seem extravagant in the change-resistant world of criminal justice, where police and prison wardens' boots have, tramped for decades with notable unoriginality of thought...
...The victim gets no apology or act of restoration...
...The offender need not acknowledge that he has harmed anyone...
...A cynic might say that this is a faith-based solution that requires a big leap of faith...
...All the more amazing that hard-headed politicians from Norway to New Zealand are giving Restorative Justice courses a try...
...On the printed page, its principles can read like an airy-fairy academic theory...
...Offenders can be made to meet their victims, apologize to them, compensate them with hard cash, and to do public work in the communities where they committed their crimes...
...But the idea—called Restorative Justice—has received support from George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and prominent politicians in two dozen countries around the world...
...prisons as a whole...
...That's less than one quarter the rate for U.S...
...Onward RJ soldiers...
...Period...
...The average age of British inmates is 23...
...Known as InnerChange Freedom Initiative prisons—the others are in Iowa, Kentucky and Kansas—they are the brain children of Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministries organization...
...Young criminals who thought their offenses were against "the rich" or "the Government" are brought face to face with poor people like their own mothers or grandmothers, whose homes have been violated...
...B UT THERE IS ALSO the spiritual dimension—the key to making Restorative Justice work...
...Yet in the marketplace of spiritual ideas, faith-based solutions and religious discussion, the question of justice—and an innovative answer to it—are moving up the agendas of thoughtful politicians and justice administrators across the world...
Vol. 36 • October 2003 • No. 5
