CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION Gaining a Perspective
Few issues evoke such powerful emotional responses today as crime
and its consequences. For many people, fear of crime is second
only to fear of death. Like death, crime can enter a person's life at any
time, destroy forever a sense of safety and security, and leave a legacy of
anxiety and mistrust. This legacy is bequeathed not only to the immediate
victims of crime and their loved ones but also to the wider society.
Where serious criminal offending is perceived to be increasing and
to be largely random in its occurrence, even those who have never been
directly victimized can feel their freedom restricted and their lives diminished
by a constant worry that they may be next to suffer. Crime is
also one of the most difficult areas of human behavior to deal with
from a Christian perspective. When we are confronted with rape, murder,
home invasions, and child abuse, familiar platitudes about hating
the sin yet loving the sinner seem pitifully inadequate. Anger, resentment,
and loathing rise up, and, whatever we may believe about love
and forgiveness, what we really want is swift retribution. It is important
to admit to these common human reactions and to resist giving
them a premature Christian baptism. For, if Michael Ignatieff is correct,
"the great moral weakness of our age.is not, as some people
think, a general lack of moral principles, but on the contrary, indignant
moral posturing by people too lazy to think through the consequences
of strong emotions." And for Christians, it is not just the human consequences that make it imperative to think beyond immediate
emotional reactions to crime, though these are considerable, but also
the consequences for our witness to the gospel of redemption through
Jesus Christ.
In this chapter I consider what is entailed in thinking through a
Christian position on crime and punishment, and I raise some initial
questions about the extent to which the New Testament speaks to such
issues. This is preparatory to my larger aim in this book of exploring
whether and in what ways the teaching of the New Testament is compatible
with, or may contribute to, the vision of "restorative justice."
Several criminal-justice experts advocate restorative justice as a viable
alternative to the increasingly dysfunctional Western system of criminal
justice, which is based largely on the concept of retribution. Unlike
retributive justice, which centers on the notions of law-breaking, guilt,
and punishment, restorative justice focuses on relationships, reconciliation,
and reparation of harm done. It understands crime less as a matter
of law-breaking than as the infliction of injury or loss on another
human being. "Restorative justice is a peacemaking response to crime,
and a critique of criminology as a military science," suggests Wayne
Northey. "It does not counter a harm done by a new harm, but with a
healing response to victim, offender and the wider community. If restorative
justice practice has educational and rehabilitative spinoffs,
these are good but secondary goals to restoring the brokenness arising
from the criminal act." Such "peace-making justice," David Cayley explains,
"insists on accountability, reparation and reform — but tries to
avoid ostracization, stigmatization, and the compounding of old violence
with new violence."
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