“At the most fundamental level, the ELCA calls for a juvenile justice system that more closely matches its original rehabilitative intent and is equipped to meet the needs and manage the risks of all youth offenders… Until every state can meet the needs and manage the risks of all youth offenders within a rehabilitation-focused juvenile system, juvenile justice reform will be incomplete.” — “The Church and Criminal Justice: Hearing the Cries,” a social statement of the ELCA, adopted August 2013.
Emerging from concern for the massive levels of incarceration in the U.S., the 4 million-member ELCA has adopted, after five years of study and discernment, a comprehensive social statement on criminal justice, “The Church and Criminal Justice: Hearing the Cries.”
The statement sets policy for the church, guides its advocacy work and serves as a teaching document to assist members with their thinking and action on criminal justice issues. It also identifies direct and specific actions to be taken at the congregational, statewide and national church levels.
While the statement addresses criminal justice reform broadly, it devotes significant attention to reform of the juvenile system. Roger Willer, director for theological studies of the ELCA explains, “During our five years of study, the task force listened to the voices of many secular organizations, including the Campaign for Youth Justice, that are devoted to making the U.S. juvenile system a more hopeful system, one that is more consistent with the developmental needs of youth. It became undeniably clear that the ELCA must join those voices.”
The statement insists that juvenile justice reform is critical if the U.S. is to achieve greater justice more broadly. Other necessary reforms include recognizing racial disparities and ending discrimination, as well as ending prison privatization.
Addressing juvenile justice, it advocates for recognition of the differences between juvenile and adult offenders, an end to youth sentences of life without the possibility of parole, and the elimination of transferring juvenile offenders to the adult system. On that point Roger notes: “The task force debated questions such as, ‘Is it morally justified to take positions that could lead to more violent youth being placed in, and further burdening, ill-equipped juvenile facilities? Is their incapacitation in the adult system necessary to keep our communities safe?’ In the end the adopted statement reasons that if our current juvenile system is ill-equipped to help the most serious youth offenders, then that is where reform needs to happen. Placing youth, any youth, in the adult system, is a morally dubious strategy for achieving community safety.”
Originally posted Oct. 25, 2013, at Campaign for Youth Justice. Republished with permission.
