Mercy Triumphs over Judgement: Intrusive or Enabling Mercy?

This chapter engages in a philosophical and theological critique of thinkers who construe justice and mercy as contradictory norms. It develops a theological account of restorative justice in which mercy is understood as the ‘operative condition’ enabling the pursuit of justice beyond mere retribution. It elaborates this through an account of the moral anthropology inherent in Christian accounts of penance which understand moral agency as a time-bound pursuit of character-formation. Justice is pursued not in meting out a measure of proportionate hard-treatment, but in the merciful gift of the ‘penitential time’ which may enable reform of character and action. It ends with a tentative account of sanctification, desire and desistence and suggests these aspects of theological anthropology might inform a critique of the criminogenic machine of consumerism.

Loving the Neighbourhood, Loving Enemies: Towards a Theology for (and from) Policing1

Policing has been curiously absent from direct, sustained and explicit consideration in the long-established and significant theological literature on criminal justice. This chapter begins by interrogating that absence as a first move towards constructing a theology of and for policing that reflects the author’s own experience as a serving British police officer. That is supplemented by the more or less focal engagement with policing in other theological literatures (political theologies, Black Lives Matter movement, international peacebuilding and just war, Christian pacifism and non-violence). Twin nodes of a theology of and for policing are identified: love of neighbourhood and of enemies as vehicles for a social order oriented towards human flourishing. Policing practices are considered as tools that might foster such a social order in a theological engagement with policing that is at once critical and, realist, in which policing has transformative and reparative potential.

Criminology, Public Theology and Hope

This chapter draws on Christian public theology and criminology and considers hope as an alternative to the pains associated with contemporary criminal justice. The chapter draws on philosophical writings where pertinent, in particular Kantian conceptions of human dignity. Jesus’ sermon on the plain is considered that emphasised love for enemies. The implications for criminal justice are considered. The chapter then turns to the work of Paul Ricoeur who, when considering the sermon on the plain, wrote about an economy of gift. It is a logic of superabundance characterised by compassionate generosity that gives without expecting anything in return. The consequences of applying such a Christian ethical position - or as Ricoeur put it, a supra-ethical position - to secular criminal justice are discussed.

The ‘Quality of Mercy’ in Probation Practice

The creation of the Probation Service in England and Wales could be seen as an expression of public theology in action. The evangelism of Victorian life was an important factor in shaping the early practices of probation through the work of the Police Court Missionaries, employed by the Church of England Temperance Society. In his seminal quartet of essays, Bill McWilliams describes the period 1876-1936 as one of ‘special pleading’ (McWilliams 1983:129-147). ‘Mercy’ was the concept which provided the key to understanding the missionaries’ place in the courts, and in particular their social enquiry practice. Mercy stood between the offender, the missionary and the sentencer, and it was mercy which made sense of their relationships. In this chapter the author considers if the concept of mercy still has salience in contemporary probation practice and argues for a re-assertion of the humanitarian sentiments that guided the early work of the Police Court Missionaries.

Introduction: Public Criminology Meets Public Theology

Criminologists have seldom considered learning from theology, yet theologians have written on themes of criminological concern, including regarding issues of criminal justice. In this introductory chapter crossover between the two subjects is highlighted as an opportunity to critique retributive punishment and present new thinking on the place of hope, mercy and restoration in secular criminal justice settings. The focus is on learning from Christian theology although it is acknowledged that there may be much to learn from other faith traditions as well. The focus for this chapter is the space between public criminology and public theology. The rest of the volume is then introduced.