Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Every day when I pick up my newspaper I read about crime. Few people ask more basic questions about whether punishment ought to be our main concern. Even fewer seem genuinely concerned about victims and what they need. Consequently, victims' needs and wishes continue to be ignored.
Prisons are massively crowded, and the death penalty is back with a vengeance.
The costs to us as taxpayers keep soaring. Actually, there is good reason why we ignore victims and focus instead on more punishment for offenders. It has to do with our very definitions of what constitutes crime and what justice entails. If you have been a victim, you know something about the fear, the anger, the shame, the sense of violation that this experience generates. Unfortunately, you may also know from personal experience how little help, information and involvement you can expect from the justice process.