This week, the Office of Government Relations Criminal Justice Series will focus on prison conditions, particularly the treatment of and opportunities for those who are incarcerated. Prison sentences can be designed to accomplish many goals, including punishment (penalty for committing a crime), sequestration (removing particularly dangerous people from the community), deterrence (discouraging others from repeating…

The practice of mandatory minimum sentencing for violent and non-violent offenses was originally established in reaction to the rise in crime rates in the early 1990s. These harsh prison sentences led to a dramatic growth in the number of people incarcerated for violent crimes. Sentencing policies have contributed greatly to racial disparities in the adult…

For the third week of our educational criminal justice series, we consider an often-overlooked figure who plays a key role for 4 out of 5 individuals in the criminal justice system: the public defender. Our modern public defender systems find their grounding in the principle that a fair trial is almost impossible without the assistance…

The focus for the second week of our educational criminal justice series is understanding how people encounter the criminal justice system in the first place. In particular, we look at why so many young people are arrested and then incarcerated before they turn 18, and how this information can help direct our advocacy efforts. There are…

The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations invites members of the Episcopal Public Policy Network to learn and engage in conversation with us for the next five weeks to learn more about criminal justice reform. Through five educational posts, this series will provide an opportunity to learn more about The Episcopal Church’s policy positions, our longstanding…