The American Criminal Justice System Needs Reform: A Christian Proposal with Matt Martens

It is comfortable and easy to remain naive and sheltered from the realities of the American criminal justice system. Hearing the stories of those who’ve been wrongfully held and convicted is heartbreaking. Reading the statistics is shocking. In our democratic republic, we must do better. You and I and all citizens have conferred the responsibility to carry out justice to our elected officials, so it’s on us to hold them to an honest standard.

Listen to this episode of All Things to gain a clear understanding of some of our system’s grossest injustices and how you can begin to think, speak, and act for positive change.

"The United States is the world’s largest jailer…accounting for approximately 19% of the world’s prisoners, but only 4.25% of the world’s population… We need an examination of the machinery, not merely the product, of the criminal justice system." - Matt Martens, lawyer and author of Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal.

"The important point for the Christian in a democratic system is that, because government officials exercise power that we played a role in giving them, our duty to love carries with it a moral obligation to supervise the exercise of governmental power we conferred…You and I have a political relationship, and thus a moral proximity, to the situation.” - Matt Martens

Many thanks to this season’s sponsor, Crossway! https://www.crossway.org/

Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal by Matt Martens: https://www.crossway.org/books/reforming-criminal-justice-hcj/

Keep up with Matt Martens: https://matthew-martens.com/

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/martensmatt1