Doing Justice to Mercy: Religion, Law, and Criminal Justice

Introduction

1 Introduction The Purpose of the Book Breaches of law and the challenges of administering justice pervade and inform everyday human life. From domestic violence to corporate corruption , senseless hate crimes to the carnage of ethnic cleansing, a local homicide to an act of international terrorism—issues of crime and punishment deeply touch the lives of victims, offenders, and the rest of society. Recent events on both domestic and international fronts have underscored how pressing issues of crime and punishment are reawakening awareness and discussion, from the dinner table to the highest centers of government. The September 11 attacks and the subsequent war on terror and war in Afghanistan and Iraq have indelibly shaped conceptions of order, security, and the rule of law; they have also provoked enormous debates on the constitutional and moral limits of government power in seeking this order and security. The execution of the one-thousandth person since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976 has reignited debates about the efficacy of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime. Others point to the falling crime rate, particularly with respect to violent crime, as evidence that mandatory sentencing has effectively reduced crime. In confronting these realities, tougher language of punishment has emerged and gained some momentum, intensifying questions about proper modes of administering punishment and protecting human rights. Beyond the different discourses and high emotions surrounding these issues, there are also a number of undeniable facts that demand attention and make the subject matter of this volume all the more pressing. As contributors to this volume repeatedly note, in recent decades the number of people incarcerated in the United States has increased at a breathtaking rate to an unprecedented level in world history, quadrupling since 1980. There are now in excess of 2 million people incarcerated, including more than 1.4 million people of color, some 70 percent of the whole. V4366.indb 1 V4366.indb 1 8/22/07 3:20:54 PM 8/22/07 3:20:54 PM 2 Introduction These numbers alone, implicating as they do not only the lives of the imprisoned but also the lives of their families, children, neighborhoods, and wider communities, call for renewed attention to questions of crime and punishment in the United States. Moreover, both contributing to this trend and constituting a trend of its own, sentencing in the United States has become increasingly punitive, as mandatory sentencing, “threestrikes -and-you’re-out” policies, and longer sentences for nonviolent offenders increasingly dominate the penal and political landscape. Further, as grave concerns about terrorism and homeland security now appear as permanent and determining fixtures in American life, new questions arise as to just how far state power may or should go in the alleged interest of national defense, and accordingly, how far civil liberties may or should be compromised in the process. In light of these contemporary issues and growing public concerns, a comprehensive public discourse on the relationship between “justice ” and “mercy” vis-à-vis criminal justice systems seems necessary, not only to clarify the issues at stake but also to generate critically ideas and frameworks for reshaping current institutional patterns. The purpose of this book is to help convene just such a conversation. Because issues of criminal justice are theoretically and practically complex, an interdisciplinary approach seems to us most promising. This approach engages diverse realms of expertise, methodology, and terminology. Accordingly, the contributors to this volume are eminent scholars representing diverse fields—jurisprudence, theology, ethics, public policy, public defense, and social activism—as well as distinct subdisciplines within these fields: constitutional law, criminal law, international law, theological ethics, philosophical and social ethics, and political theology. As these contributors demonstrate, issues of mercy and justice do not conform to received dichotomies between religious convictions and legal obligations; rather, the complexity of these terms warrants capacious modes of thinking that embrace diverse conceptual frameworks. Principal themes considered by these contributors include the place of mercy within the criminal justice system with reference to purposes of justice (e.g., deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation, and restoration); various grounds for practices of mercy (e.g., legal, philosophical, theological dimensions); and practical aspects of implementation. The volume is intended to demonstrate that, despite common misconceptions, the conversation between law and religion on these themes can be complementary V4366.indb 2 V4366.indb 2 8/22/07 3:20:55 PM 8/22/07 3:20:55 PM [3.129.45.92] Project MUSE...