Hurt with Fetters: Theological Reflections on Criminal Justice (Unabridged‪)‬

Hurt with Fetters reveals a fundamental problem associated with current practices of criminal justice. The problem is essentially one of narrative, and is built into how the story of criminal justice is told. Christians have adopted narrative understandings of justice that run contrary to the contours of the Christian story. An adequate response to the problem deals first with the primary point of contention between the current narrative of criminal justice and the Christian story. That point of contention is born out in how we identify as human beings: an identity that either eschews value and dignity, or weaves those things into it.

A reassessment of the problem draws out its central location with the natural theological force of the Christian narrative. Theologically, that central location of the problem is situated distinctly within an understanding of who we are as humans.