Assuring witness: Melanie Jameson on criminal justice work
‘Our witness must remain proactive as well as reactive.’
You may be wondering what has happened to Quaker criminal justice work. Wasn’t it being laid down? And wasn’t there rather a fuss about it at Meeting for Sufferings? ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes’. This time last year, Quakers in Criminal Justice (QICJ) learned that, due to restructuring, our work would no longer receive central funding and would lose the expertise of a linked staff member. Some of you raised the matter at Local Meetings. Nine minutes were subsequently forwarded to Meeting for Sufferings for their July 2021 session, with one more arriving later. A typical submission (from Leicester AM) read: ‘We regard work in the area of criminal justice as fundamental to our Quaker testimonies and our history’.
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