Parallel Justice for Victims of Crime (2012, National Center for Victims of Crime) by Susan Herman presents a new framework for delivering justice to victims. Herman, who has more than 30 years of criminal justice experience, including eight years as executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, offers the metaphor of two ladders of justice—one for offenders and one for victims—with separate paths and responses. The criminal justice system controls the path for offenders—which includes apprehension, persecution, sanctioning, and eventual reintegration into society. Yet, the path to justice for victims “at every level—individual, community, and governmental—is ineffective, fragmented, and dismissive.” Read More
Each April since 1981, the Office of Victims of Crime has helped to mobilize communities throughout the country in their annual observances of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week (NCVRW) by advancing victims’ rights and honoring crime victims and those who advocate on their behalf. Read More
In 2006, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion that there was not “a single case, not one, in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.” This assertion outraged many in the death penalty abolition movement whose experience told them otherwise. Read More
St. Louis University Professor Tobias Winright uses a literary vignette from The Lord of the Rings as a jumping off point for a powerful reflection on Christian faith and the death penalty in his article, “Gandalf, Gollum, and the Death Penalty,” published in the January 2013 edition of Sojourners Magazine. Read More
In 1976 the Supreme Court upheld one of the country’s most controversial practices — capital punishment. Since then, over 1,300 Americans have been executed by the state. Read More
While running errands last week, the marquee of a local Catholic church reminded me that Ash Wednesday was Feb. 13 and that the Lenten Season and Easter would soon be upon us. Read More
With a death penalty repeal bill sponsored by Governor O’Malley and more than enough votes to pass it in both the House and the Senate, Maryland stands ready to become the 18th state without the death penalty. Read More
A few days ago on January 21, 2013, we celebrated the legacy and memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. There is incredible synchronicity in the unfolding events in just these first few weeks of the New Year. Read More
In 2010, a 20-20 tie vote in the State Senate stalled the efforts to repeal the death penalty in Kansas. But that hasn’t stopped Kansas! Read More