Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Radio Free Acton: A first step towards criminal justice reform; The human cost of unemployment part II
Radio Free Acton: A first step towards criminal justice reform; The human cost of unemployment part II
Feb 11, 2026 7:46 AM

On this episode of Radio Free Acton, producer Caroline Roberts speaks with Sarah Estelle,associate professor of economics at Hope College. Caroline and Sarah discuss the subject of criminal justice reform in light of the recently passed, bipartisan bill, The First Step Act, covering specific policies in the new bill and effects of the current criminal system. After that, award winning reporter Anne Marie Schieber continues exploring the effects of unemployment. Last week,we showed the importance of being in the right frame of mind when trying to find a job, and this week we show you why it is so hard to get out of the slump.

Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics:

Read a series of articles on criminal justice reform by Sarah Estelle

Explainer: What you should know about the latest criminal justice reform bill

Register here to attend a lecture event featuring Sarah Estelle on the Economic Ways of Loving

Check out the latest numbers on unemployment

Do you have questions for the Radio Free Acton team that you would like answered in future podcast segments? We want to hear from you! Leave a message at 888-705-4180 or email [email protected]. Lastly, if you like what you heard on today’s episode, don’t forget to give us a rating on iTunes.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Which Vocations Should Be Off Limits to Christians?
The Reformation doctrine of vocation teaches that even seemingly secular jobs and earthly relationships are spheres where God assigns Christians to live out their faith, notes Gene Veith. But are there some lines of work that Christians should avoid? God himself works through human vocations in providential care as he governs the world. He provides daily bread through farmers and bakers. He protects us through lawful magistrates. He heals us by means of physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. He creates new...
Commentary: Human Nature: The Question behind the Culture Wars
Why do people so readily assume the worst about the religious motives of their fellow citizens? Why do we let partisanship take precedence over implementing policy solutions? In his new book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and attempts to show the way forward to mutual understanding. In his review of Haidt’s book, Anthony Bradley writes in this week’s Acton Commentary (published Mar. 21)...
John Witherspoon and the Early American Understanding of Religious Liberty
With the concept of religious liberty being treated as an antiquated and obsolete notion, it’s refreshing to be reminded of the great, but oft-forgotten, Founding Father John Witherspoon. As John Willson writes, Witherspoon—who was asigner of the Declaration, member of Congress, and President of Princeton—had a profound understanding of how the government should relate to religion: Witherspoon had not the slightest doubt that there was truth, and that it can be apprehended in the gospel of Jesus Christ as expressed...
Private Charity: A Practitioner’s View
There are only a few days left to register for the AU Online session, Private Charity: A Practitioner’s View! This online session will take place on March 27 and feature highly-rated Acton lecturer and current U.S. Regional Facilitator for Partners Worldwide, Rudy Carrasco. In a lecture that blends the theoretical with real-life encounters and stories, Rudy shows how using local knowledge and resources unavailable and unsuited to public agencies is vital for effective charity. Why wait to hear Rudy speak...
Willingness and Ability to Serve in the Armed Forces
I saw the fine film Act of Valor last month, and I was struck by the level of sacrifice displayed in the lives of the service members featured. I have wondered in the meantime whether the scale of the sacrifice that’s been required of American service persons over the last two decades is sustainable. One of the film’s characters leaves behind a pregnant wife, and beyond all of the usual and somewhat abstract “faith and freedom” reasons for serving in...
John Locke and the Contraceptive Mandate
Michael Gerson on what the Obama administration’s view of religious liberty shares with John Locke: One tradition of religious liberty contends that freedom of conscience is protected and advanced by the autonomy of religious groups. In this view, government should honor an institutional pluralism — the ability of people to associate, live and act in accordance with their religious beliefs, limited only by the clear requirements of public order. So Roger Williams ed Catholics and Quakers to the Rhode Island...
Europe: A Turtle on its Back?
Would dissolving the mon currency, as proposed by the French free-market economist and entrepreneur Charles Gave in his bookLibéral mais non coupable(“Liberal But Not Guilty”) free the Old Continent to stand upright on its financial feet again?Or would dissolving the currency drastically end the European project altogether, as some pro-Euro technocrats in Brussels fear? Charles Gave, the chairman of the investment firmGaveKal, (and whose lecture I listened to at a 2011 Acton Conference Family Enterprise, Market Economies, and Poverty in...
Miller: Here I Come to Save the World Bank
In The American Spectator, Acton Institute’s Michael Matheson Miller throws his hat into the ring as he launches a tongue-in-cheek candidacy for World Bank president, but also raises serious questions about the institution’s poverty fighting programs. Miller is a research fellow at Acton, where he directs PovertyCure, an initiative that promotes enterprise solutions to poverty. Jeffrey Sachs — are you listening? Here are some planks from Miller’s campaign platform: I don’t believe that foreign aid is the solution — or...
HHS Mandate Fits Bigger Pattern
Both the original promise versions of the Obama administration’s health insurance mandate (the HHS mandate) coerce people into paying, either directly or indirectly, for other people’s contraception. The policy may have been pushed along by exigencies of Democratic Party constituency politics, but I suspect there’s also a worldview dimension to the mandate, one embodied in one of President Obama’s more controversial appointments—Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren. Holdren, as far as I know, wasn’t involved in crafting President Obama’s...
Obama Administration Actions Affecting Religious Freedom
“The past year has marked a shift in religious liberty debates,” notes Sarah Pulliam Bailey at Christianity Today, “one that previously centered on hiring rights but became focused on health care requirements.” Bailey put together a helpful timeline that shows a number of actions the government took in the past year, setting precedents and priorities on various issues affecting religious freedom. ...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved