Ask your member of Congress to support H.R. 3713, the Sentencing Reform Act. Background: Decades of overly harsh sentences, particularly mandatory minimums, have led to a dramatic increase in the incarcerated population in the U.S. Our country now incarcerates more people than any other in the world. Unfair sentences have affected millions of families across…
It is always important to engage with your elected officials, but it is particularly important in an election year like this one. U.S. government policies greatly impact people’s lives in this country and around the world. Those who are poor or marginalized are often affected the most. As Christians, we must educate ourselves about candidates’…
The United States has become infamous for having the largest prison population in the world. Our “justice” system is, in reality, unjust. Many of these injustices start with how young people are treated. Crimes committed by juveniles are overwhelmingly non-violent, and overall juvenile crime has actually declined over the past decade. Despite this, our country…
By Joshua Russell The past 18 months have seen an unprecedented debate in the United States over the police and the use of force. The killing of unarmed African-Americans by police has thrust the racial tensions that many white people were unaware of or ignored into the national spotlight. Tremendous damage has been done in…
Read more The debate over “Blue lives matter” and “Black lives matter”
WASHINGTON – Olivia Dalke, a junior at Dallas High School in Dallas, Oregon, and a member of Salem Mennonite Church, has earned the grand prize of $1,000 for her essay on climate change in the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) U.S. Washington Office annual essay contest. In her essay, Dalke analyzed the global implications for climate…
More and more people are becoming aware of the fact that the U.S. puts more people in prison, at a higher rate, than any other country in the world. For comparison, look at this map from Vox: You can see in the chart below (courtesy of The Sentencing Project) that the U.S. prison population was…
Since 1980, the U.S. prison population has expanded 500%, an astounding figure that has resulted in 2.3 million people in prison, more than any other country in the world. Using this interactive map from the Vera Institute for Justice, you can see just how much the incarceration rate has changed in your county over the…
