Restorative Justice
Promoting fairness, accountability, and public safety are critical criminal justice goals. Policies that encourage rehabilitation and healing are also needed. MCC supports:
- Policies that respect crime victims, including provision of just compensation and treatment for their physical and emotional injuries.
- Reforming current policy that automatically charges a seventeen-year-old as an adult in the criminal justice system, regardless of the crime.
- Policies that incentivize intensive probation programming to reduce recidivism.
- Adequate state funding to ensure accused indigent persons receive competent legal representation.
- Comprehensive reentry services to assist the formerly incarcerated to become productive members of society.
- Sentencing guidelines and parole practices that reflect an individual’s potential threat to society.
- Elimination of life without parole sentencing for juveniles convicted as adults.
News Releases
- For Second Straight Year, MCC Presented with Three Top Awards for Excellence in Public Relations (04/22/19)
- Raise the Age Legislation Seeks a ‘Smart’ Approach to Juvenile Crime (12/01/15)
- ‘A Blueprint for the Common Good’ (02/09/15)
- Statement on Michigan Supreme Court Juvenile Life Without Parole Decision (07/08/14)
Additional Resources
- The Word from Lansing Column:
- Do Justice, Love Goodness, and Walk Humbly with God (07/17/20)
- Patience and Persistence: Advocacy Successes in 2019 (01/17/20)
- Michigan Prepares to Enact “Raise the Age” Legislation (10/25/19)
- 2019–2020: A Blueprint for the Common Good (01/25/19)
- Reflecting, Preparing, and Acting — Advent and Advocacy (12/21/18)
- Reforming Juvenile Justice in Michigan (Focus Essay, 11/2015)
- Crime and Criminal Justice: Juvenile Life Without Parole (Focus Essay, 5/2014)
- Background on Confronting Armed Violence and Promoting Peace (USCCB, 2013)
- Defending the Poor (Focus Essay, 5/2009)
- When I Call for Help: A Pastoral Response to Domestic Violence Against Women (U.S. Bishops, 2002)
- Michigan Campaign for Justice
MCC in the News
- Michigan Passes Raise the Age Criminal Justice Reform Plan (Detroit News, 04/24/19)
- For Second Straight Year, MCC Presented with Three Top Awards for Excellence in Public Relations (04/22/19)
- Opinion: Justice System Should Not Treat Kids as Adults (Detroit News, 07/23/18)
- Will Raise the Age Legislation Get Movement in Michigan (Public News Service, 06/06/18)
- Bills in Michigan Legislature Could Help Cap School-to-Prison Pipeline (Detroit Free Press, 03/12/16)
- Raise the Age Legislation Seeks a ‘Smart’ Approach to Juvenile Crime (12/01/15)
- ‘A Blueprint for the Common Good’ (02/09/15)
- Statement on Michigan Supreme Court Juvenile Life Without Parole Decision (07/08/14)
- Panel: Fix Michigan’s Public Defense System with Permanent Commission (MLive, 06/22/12)
- Statewide Public Defense System Needed in Michigan (Lansing State Journal, 03/19/09)