Watching the news is very tough at the moment. In this time of manufactured chaos, it’s so easy to think that individuals or communities have no power to change things. But instead of giving in to despair or apathy, we can find consolation in all the work that is happening, often by volunteers, to make… Read more »

What we are witnessing is a form of societal resignation. We tolerate a level of road danger that curtails the freedom of children to move through their communities. This is a moral issue. When we fail to police motor offences, when we design streets around the convenience of cars rather than the safety of people, we make a clear choice: to prioritise speed and flow over life and freedom.

On 13th March 2025, the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice welcomed Dr Geertjan Zuijdwegt—criminologist and theologian at KU Leuven—for an expert seminar on small-scale detention and the Belgian experience of implementing this modality of punishment.

Forced to take an indirect route to work or a night out because of “no-go” streets. Hurriedly crossing the road due to serial law-breaking and aggressive behaviour. Speeding up on your bicycle as a “single male” aggressively follows. Children unable to go to school on their own—even the shortest distance—without needing to be delivered to the school gate in the parental car.

We’ve written on this blog before about the environmental impact of the fashion industry and how it increases inequality, and the issue of garment worker exploitation has been explored in our journal Working Notes. Visit any shopping centre or high street and you’ll see bustling stores and people carrying multiple shopping bags from clothing retailers,… Read more »

Introduction: Manufactured Chaos We are living through a moment of extraordinary political upheaval. From the United States to Europe, leaders who present themselves as defenders of “common sense” are reshaping societies in ways that benefit the wealthy while dismantling protections for the vulnerable. At first glance, many of these policies seem chaotic: reactive, rushed, even… Read more »

“What is the moral basis for punishing someone, perhaps hard, in order to prevent entirely different people from committing equivalent acts, when those we punish to a large extent are poor and highly stigmatised people in need of assistance rather than punishment?”

The JCFJ is a member of Coalition 2030, an alliance of over 70 civil society and trade union organisations in Ireland who collaborate for the domestic and global achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 SDGs, which are all equally important and should be treated equally, were adopted by all UN member… Read more »

There’s a common trope that we have a name for an entity that seeks to grow without limit (as our variety of capitalism demands) and it is cancer. There’s a deeper, fundamental critique that even anticipating the wonderful gains of efficiency that can come from market competition, infinite growth with finite resources is bound to… Read more »

A new prison at Thornton Hall was a bad idea in 2005, and it still remains so.