Dominique

“The church must reckon with the reality that ever since black people were stolen from Africa and trafficked to this land, they have been dehumanized, abused, criminalized, incarcerated, exploited for profit, and governed in distinctively sinister ways. This oppression has been personal, institutional, systemic, and legislative. It has been authorized and sanctioned by our local, state, and federal government. As the church, do we have the wherewithal to confront the austere reality that our national economy has been subsidized by a criminal justice system that is, and has been, predicated on the exploitation of cheap labor extracted from poor, racially profiled people of color?”
― Dominique DuBois Gilliard, Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores

“Today, it is predicted that nationwide one in three black males and one in six Hispanic males will be incarcerated in their lifetime. We have come to accept this as natural. But why doesn’t our discipleship inspire us to interrogate this belief?”
― Dominique DuBois Gilliard, Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores

“We cannot incarcerate ourselves out of addiction. Addiction is a medical crisis that—when it comes to nonviolent offenders—warrants medical interventions, not incarceration. Decades later, data unequivocally illustrates that this war has been a massive failure. It has not only failed to reduce violent crime, but arrest rates—throughout its tenure—have continuously ascended even when crime rates have descended.”
― Dominique DuBois Gilliard, Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores

“While many have depicted the War on Drugs as a Republican initiative, the drug war was a bipartisan effort. This rhetoric of law and order deployed by politicians won elections nationwide, from races for local council seats to the presidency.”
― Dominique DuBois Gilliard, Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores