Doing Justice to Mercy

Book excerpt: The schools of divinity and law at the University of Chicago sponsored a three-day conference (no date cited) to explore the relationship of mercy to justice in systems of criminal justice. A glaring context of the discussion was the massive expansion of the US prison system since the 1970s, calling into question the fundamental purpose of the criminal justice system. Some of the 12 papers consider case studies, such as domestic violence, sentencing, and international law. Others look at approaches to the question, among them political theology, phenomenological, and social ethics.