Restorative Justice

What is Restorative Justice? It is a theory of Justice that emphasizes the repairing of harm caused by unjust behavior. It offers an alternative to Retributive Justice (eye for an eye) by holding offenders accountable, while simultaneously trying to redeem their broken situation.

Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration

Dismas Ministry

This national Catholic outreach among inmates and those affected by crime is named after one of the people executed with Jesus on Calvary.

Bridges to Life Restorative Justice Program

John Sage - Founder & Executive Director - Email

John Sage was born and raised in Houston, John graduated from St. Thomas High School. He attended Louisiana State University where he graduated with a BS degree in Finance and a Masters degree in Business Administration. John was a three year letterman for the LSU Football team and was Defensive Captain in 1970. He also earned All-SEC honors as a defensive tackle. After graduation from LSU, John served a short time on active duty in the U.S. Army, Armor Division, and subsequently was honorably discharged from the Army Reserve with the rank of Captain.

John has been married to his wife Frances for 37 years and they have two sons, John and Hunter, ages 28 and 29.

Most of John's professional life has been spent in the real estate and financial areas of business. He was partner in Sage Land Company and was principal owner of John Sage & Co., an NASD securities broker/dealer firm.

In 1993, John's younger sister, Marilyn, was murdered. The two killers were apprehended and subsequently sentenced to the death penalty. After several years of trauma, rage, and grief, this life changing experience inspired John to found Bridges To Life in an effort to empower victims and rehabilitate prisoners. Bridges To Life searches for and embraces victims of violent crime, who are often broken by their pain, grief, and rage.

The primary mission of Bridges To Life is to connect communities to prisons in an effort to reduce the recidivism rate of offenders and hereby effect a consequent reduction in crime in Texas. Under John's leadership, Bridges To Life has experienced significant growth, currently utilizing over 300 volunteers participating in programs in twenty-two Texas prisons.

In the year 2000, state and federal prisons held about 1.3 million inmates, and local jails held around 600,000. A decade earlier, in 1990, state and federal prisons held about 700,000 inmates, and local jails held around 400,000. Thus between 1990 and 2000, the country’s incarcerated population nearly doubled, growing from 1.1 million to 1.9 million.

On Nov. 15, 2000, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued “Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice.” The statement rejected as unwise and inhumane the sentencing policies that had contributed to the decade-long increase in the incarcerated population. The bishops also called for greater public investments in crime-prevention programs and substance-abuse treatment programs.

Prison policy needs to allow for the possibility of redemption.

It was a brilliant balancing act, expressing sincere regard for crime victims while condemning the “culture of violence” that prevails in many homes and neighborhoods, summarizing crime statistics and trends while infusing nearly every page with Catholic social teaching. Accordingly, the statement was generally well received by liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans and Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Now, however, it is time for the U.S.C.C.B. to dust off and update its 2000 statement, issue a new one this year and take center civic stage in preaching and pushing for public policies that protect the public without further increasing the number of people who are behind bars.

In 2008, the latest year for which there are complete data, state and federal prisons held about 1.5 million people, and local jails held around 800,000 people. Thus, between 2000 and 2008 the country’s incarcerated population increased from 1.9 million to 2.3 million. That 20-percent increase occurred even though more than 600,000 people have been released from state and federal prisons each year since 2000.

On the one hand, research by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that nearly 60 percent of the post-2000 increase in the prison population consists of offenders whose latest crime of conviction is a violent crime. And, as summarized in the latest study sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, as much as a third of the post-1994 crime drop nationally is probably due to increased incarceration.

On the other hand, the same bureau data indicate that fully half of all state prisoners, and about 90 percent of all federal prisoners, are serving time for a nonviolent crime. Numerous empirical studies and surveys indicate that prisons today hold hundreds of thousands of persons whose only crimes, including ones for which they were never arrested, have been nonviolent crimes involving illegal drug possession, use or small-scale sales.

There is early but encouraging evidence that state criminal justice systems are punishing smarter, not harder. Between 2000 and 2008, for instance, 28 states actually decreased their imprisonment rates, including 30-percent drops in states as politically diverse as Massachusetts and Texas. Three states—Maryland, New Jersey and New York—actually held fewer prisoners in 2008 than they did in 2000. But the federal prison system continues to grow at an unprecedented clip (about 4.7 percent a year).

Many Catholic lawmakers give the bishops fits (or worse) when it comes to church teaching on vital issues like abortion, but these same officials are likely to follow where the U.S.C.C.B. leads on crime and punishment.

For one thing, post-2000 public opinion has shifted in ways favorable to prevention and treatment policies like those advocated by the bishops a decade ago. For another, as the post-2007 recession reduces government revenues, more politicians are “getting religion” with respect to scaling back the over $70 billion a year for “corrections” that taxpayers lavish mainly on long-term lockups.

Still, the biggest and best reason for the bishops to rally anew for zero prison growth and related policies is revealed in the beautiful words of Pope John Paul II with which the U.S.C.C.B. opened its 2000 statement. On July 9, 2000, the pope envisioned a day “when our conscience can be certain of having done everything possible to prevent crime” and “to offer those who commit crimes a way of redeeming themselves and making a positive return to society.” Amen.

John J. DiIulio Jr. is the author of Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America’s Faith-Based Future (Univ. of California Press, 2007)