Restorative Justice Works!

May 1, 2012

Jesse Epp-Fransen recently attended a Restorative Justice conference hosted by West Coast MCC.

Restorative justice works! This was the message of the Day of Justice held in Fresno, California, on March 16, 2012. The conference, put on by West Coast Mennonite Central Committee, featured members of local law enforcement, a judge, a leading advocate for the “three strikes” law in California, and members of the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP) in Fresno.

The participants brought varied opinions and a range of perspectives on restorative justice. Restorative justice is a perspective on addressing crime that puts healing and community support at the heart of its action. While some speakers were cautious of giving full support to the restorative justice model, other panelists, such as Reedley Police Chief Joe Garza, expressed being confident that restorative justice was the direction law enforcement needed to move.

Read the entire reflection here.

Learn more about West Coast MCC here and the Washington Office’s work on restorative justice here.

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Posted by jesseeppfransen

Standing Up for Health Care

April 30, 2012

Tammy Alexander reflects on the Supreme Court case addressing the Affordable Health Care Act in the latest Third Way Cafe.

Late last month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about the constitutionality of the health care reform law, known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). On the first of three days of arguments, I stood with other faith-based advocates in front of the court as a public witness of our support for the law.

Read the whole article here.

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Posted by jesseeppfransen

When the law shatters families

April 12, 2012

Tammy Alexander writes about immigration and family separation in the Mennonite World Review.

The stories are heartbreaking. More than 5,000 children are in foster care because one or both of their parents has been deported or is in immigration detention. Many of these parents may never see their children again.

Once detained, immigrants are often transferred to facilities hundreds of miles from their homes, are unable to attend court hearings on parental custody, and have their parental rights terminated after an absence of several months.

Read the entire article here.

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Posted by jesseeppfransen

Women: the key to food security

April 2, 2012

Patricia Kisare marks the passing of Women’s History Month with a reflection on the role of women in world wide food production and the need to better account for who produces food when making policy and development decisions.

Women produce more than half of the world’s food, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. In most developing countries, rural women produce between 60 and 80 percent of the food and are the main producers of the world’s staple crops such as corn, wheat and rice.

Although these facts have been common knowledge for a long time, women’s role as key contributors to global food security is only now being recognized by policymakers and development experts. This is critical because agriculture can contribute immensely to global economic growth and development. How women farmers fare in the food production chain is a significant component in the fight against hunger.

Read the entire article here.

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Posted by jesseeppfransen

Purchasing power

March 16, 2012

Photo: U.S. Air Force

by Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach

The U.S. military spends about $4 billion on recruitment each year. Reducing this amount by 10 percent would allow the U.S. to nearly double its funding for maternal and child health programs overseas. Currently U.S.-funded maternal and child health programs save the lives of an estimated 6 million children each year through immunizations and supplements to address malnutrition, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development…

Read the entire article on Third Way Cafe here and then send an email to your Members of Congress asking that they reduce Pentagon spending.

Leave a Comment » | Articles, Global Economic Justice, Issues, Militarism, Office Publications | Permalink
Posted by Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach

‘We don’t know who really won in the Congo’

January 6, 2012

Patricia Kisare provides analysis on the November elections in Congo.

W don’t really know who won the presidency, because there are many indications that the electoral process was flawed. Local and international election observers found the elections to be fraught with widespread irregularities. The Carter Center reported that “the quality and integrity of the vote tabulation process has varied across the country, ranging from the proper application of procedures to serious irregularities, including the loss of nearly 2,000 polling station results in Kinshasa.”

Read the article here.

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Posted by jesseeppfransen

In a world of turmoil, a light appears

January 3, 2012

Jesse Epp-Fransen reflects on the need for hope in a world full of turmoil, both in the biblical era, and today.

We… live in a turbulent world, desperately in need of good news. In America 15 percent of the population experienced poverty in 2011. More than 2 million people are in federal or state prisons, or in jails awaiting trial. One in nine African-American males ages 25-29 was in prison or jail in 2009, according to The Sentencing Project(1). The Mayor of New Orleans recently noted in a statement that “from September of last year to February of this year, a student attending John McDonough [High School] was more likely to be killed than a soldier in Afghanistan”(2).

Read the full article here.

Leave a Comment » | Articles, Crime and Justice, Issues, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by jesseeppfransen

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