Balancing Criminal Justice with Christ’s Mercy
Dr. Sandee Flint – Criminal Justice & Forensic Psychology Assistant Professor
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” – Luke 5:31-32
A career in law enforcement requires a certain kind of toughness – a certain kind of grit and determination. Dr. Sandee Flint, a criminal justice professor at Corban, knows this all too well. She said she tells her students: “What is justice is not necessarily what we want – justice is abiding by the rule of law as accurately as we can.”
While she spent a career enacting, and now teaching, the realities of our criminal justice system, she also understands that there is space for mercy, love, and redemption when enforcing these values. That complex balance – of justice and mercy – is one that Christians understand in their own relationship with God.
“My Biblical worldview allows me to remember and always hold true to the fact that I need to be at my best as I’m carrying out these duties on behalf of the people. At a time I’m interacting with them on a day where they just might be at their worst,” Flint says.
She describes taking her students to visit “Hope Dealers,” former convicts who explain the profound impact of being arrested by officers who were believers. They share the disbelief they felt when they realized that the officer wanted to pray with them.
Dr. Flint says she wants her students to take their Christian worldview into their careers because that’s what will “keep them human,” and allow them to “love another as they do themselves.”
She tells her students: “You have to have the morals, values, and integrity that your community expects of you.”
At Corban, Flint says, students have high moral integrity because of their Christian worldviews, and are more likely to become highly regarded law enforcement officers because of how their worldview impacts their approach to their career.