CCHD placing increasing emphasis on prison-sentence guidelines

August 19, 2013

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD)--the US bishops’ controversial anti-poverty program--is placing increasing emphasis upon reforming prison-sentence guidelines, according to a report in America magazine.

Ralph McCloud, who heads CCHD, said that “many CCHD-funded organizations report that reforming sentencing guidelines could be the best antidote to lessening poverty,” according to America.

Dylan Corbett, CCHD’s mission identity and outreach coordinator, also questioned privately-run prisons, which, he said, “get as many people as they can via the criminalization of drugs and now they’re getting as many as possible via the criminalization of the undocumented. We’re just filling the coffers of these private prisons.”

“In order to sustain them, you have to have customers,” added McCloud. “And in order to have customers, you have to have sentencing guidelines that keep folks there.”

 

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Further information:

• Punishment and Poverty (America)