The Catholic Church upholds that serving persons who are affected by incarceration extends beyond direct ministry. There is certainly great need for the charitable works involved in prison and jail ministries. There is also great need for advocating to create social structures that are more just. The significance of advocacy and social justice are especially prevalent in the rich history of Catholic social teaching.
The mission of JSRI is work to transform the Gulf South through action research, analysis, education, and advocacy on the core issues of race, poverty, and migration.
Organizing Catholic Teach-Ins on Mass Incarceration at local parishes and universities in an effort to create a “culture of encounter” with formerly incarcerated people.
Prison Policy Initiative is a non-partisan non-profit that uses research and data analysis to reveal the ways that mass criminalization and mass incarceration harm individuals, communities, and society as a whole.
Advocacy campaigns address topics including jails and bail, probation and parole, prison gerrymandering, racial justice, and public health.
Comprehensive investigations into issues that prevent a more just and humane criminal justice system nationally and in individual states.
CMN is the national organization that mobilizes Catholics and all people of goodwill to value life over death, to end the use of the death penalty, to transform the U.S. criminal justice system from punitive to restorative, and to build capacity in U.S. society to engage in restorative practices.
Through education, advocacy, and prayer, CMN expresses the fundamental belief that all those who have caused or been impacted by crime should be treated with dignity. CMN works in close collaboration with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and lives the Spirit of Unity of its sponsor, the Congregation of St. Joseph.
CMN’s Mercy in Action Project gives YOU the tools you need to promote clemency for those on death row. Subscribe to receive a monthly email alert about upcoming executions which include resources for prayer and advocacy.
Fridays hold special significance in the Catholic tradition. Christ was crucified on a Friday, and first Friday devotions have been observed for hundreds of years. Catholic Mobilizing Network created Faith & Action First Fridays as a way to bring Christ’s mercy to the broken system of capital punishment. Subscribe today to receive an email every first Friday of each month for a new selection of timely and impactful resources for education, advocacy, and prayer.
Want to write a letter to the editor (LTE) but not sure where to start? Look no further! CMN’s step-by-step guide will teach you everything you need to know about how to write and submit an LTE in response to a published article regarding an execution, a legislative push, a death penalty-related statement from an elected official or an event of issue in the community.
The Jesuit Conference Office of Justice and Ecology is the advocacy voice of the Society of Jesus in Canada and the United States. Current advocacy priorities include: care for creation, criminal justice reform, economic justice, and just migration policies.
Our criminal justice reform advocacy is rooted in the experiences of those served by Jesuit ministries like Homeboy Industries, the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative, Thrive for Life, Jesuit college university initiatives, Jesuit prison chaplaincy programs, and many others.
Current policy priorities include: bail reform, sentencing reform, reentry funding, educational grants for incarcerated individuals, and ending the death penalty. Sign up on our website for periodic policy updates and opportunities to engage your elected officials on criminal justice reform. Read through “School and Community Training Guide: Advocacy 101″ created in collaboration with the Ignatian Solidarity Network.
Root & Rebound is a national legal advocacy organization with offices in California and South Carolina that serves people most harmed by mass incarceration and the War on Drugs.
Through its three-pronged program model, Root and Rebound focuses on restoring and protecting rights, dignity, and opportunities for people directly impacted by the criminal justice system.
The CCUSA Advocacy and Social Policy team advocates for policies that uphold human dignity and promote integral human development. Informed by the experience of local Catholic Charities agencies, we urge policy makers to see the faces of those in need in their communities and to create policies which assist and support them.
The CCUSA Advocacy and Social Policy team offers resources to advocate for persons who are marginalized in society including:
Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) expresses the commitment of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) to stand with refugees and other displaced people in more than 50 countries around the world. JRS/USA serves forcibly displaced migrants in the US through our Detention Chaplaincy Program.
The Jesuit Refugee Service/USA chaplaincy program provides pastoral and religious assistance to meet the needs of non-citizens detained by the Department of Homeland Security in five US federal detention centers. JRS/USA also organizes supporters to raise awareness and advocate on behalf of refugees around the world and represents forcibly displaced people to Congress and US Government officials.
While no one can fully comprehend the experience of being forced from your home and living as a refugee, this resource provides individuals with a starting point of empathy. To access the resource, please click here.
A JRS Refugee Action Team can be created at a school, college campus, or a parish, and seeks to form individuals as a community dedicated to supporting our displaced brothers and sisters. To access the resource, please click here.
An article to learn more about the detention work of JRS, click here to learn more about how JRS is responding to the emotional and spiritual needs of parents separated from their children.
An article to learn more about the realities inside of a federal detention center, click here to learn more about message of hope from the JRS pastoral team to thousands of detainees passing through the facility.
The U.S. Government has taken steps to restrict the ability of asylum seekers and refugees to seek critical protections, reserved for the most vulnerable.
The work of JRS is one of gratitude to accompany those displaced on their journey. Their resilience and strength can be seen and understood through this prayer of gratitude. To access the resource, please click here.
The Justice for Immigrants (JFI) campaign stems from the 2003 Mexican-U.S. bishops joint pastoral letter, Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope.
The JFI campaign’s primary objectives are:
While no one can fully comprehend the experience of being forced from your home and living as a refugee, this resource provides individuals with a starting point of empathy. To access the resource, please click here.
To learn more about why immigrants are detained, as well as the Catholic response to detention, please click here to access this backgrounder.
To read the USCCB report titled “Unlocking Human Dignity: A Plan to Transform the U.S. Immigrant Detention System: A 2015 Joint Report of Migration and Refugee Services/United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and The Center for Migration Studies,” please click here.
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