104 Sermon Illustrations on Crime

Alcohol plays a prominent role in almost every type of crime:

53% of murders

57% of sex crimes

47% of burglaries

60% of assaults

80% of suicides

40% of work-related deaths

50% of work-related injuries

Philadelphia prison system rife with corruption. Officers helped inmates get drugs, punished enemies, and even helped inmates escape. One escapee had been on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. A wing of the prison was known as the "condominium block." Mafia-types there got Italian food brought in. Undercover operation called "Ferret" arrested 100 corrections officers. Many kept at illegal deeds even as fellow workers were being arrested.

The TV show “Cops” follows police in live action. Any person shown full-face must sign a release form. Producer John Langley says, “I’m absolutely astonished by how many people caught with one hand in the cookie jar will use the other hand to sign a release permitting us to show their faces.” He thinks it is due to the instant fame of being on TV. One man savagely fought off 10 police and dogs, was pinned to the ground, then chirped to the TV crew, “Oh, hi guys. Did you get me on TV?”

An extensive article on the way "crack" is destroying the family unit in poor inner cities. Young people and mothers are especially vulnerable. Statistics on how poverty goes hand in hand with drugs, violence and children out of wedlock.

Security Pacific bank heist. The "perfect" crime.

The short, balding man moved briskly through the lobby of the Security Pacific National Bank in L.A. and into the elevator. His name was Stanley Rifkin, and he was not challenged as he got off and walked into the wire transfer room. From this highly-guarded room hundreds of millions of dollars passed every day from Security Pacific, through the Federal Reserve system, and on to other banks around the world. Posing as a consultant, the chubby computer expert interviewed a worker in the room and found out the routing instructions, transfer routines and the day's security code.

At 3:00 he walked outside, found a phone and called the wire room. "This is Mike Hansen on International."

"Okay, and the office number?" a friendly female voice asked.

"286."

"286. Okay. What's the code?"

"4739." A pause. If the code was wrong, she would hang up.

"Okay."

Rifkin calmly told her, "The bank is Irving Trust in New York City. It's to pay Wozchod Bank, Zurich, Switzerland. Amount: ten million two hundred thousand even."

"Okay, and what's the interoffice settlement number?" Rifkin was stumped. He didn't know the number. "Let me check. I'll call you right back." He phoned a different number at the bank. Pretending to be from the wire room, he asked for the settlement number. They gave it to him, and he called the wire room back. The clerk typed his order into the system. It was as simple as that.

On October 25, 1978, Stanley Rifkin pulled off one of the largest bank thefts in United States history. Two days later in Switzerland, he picked up $8,000,000 worth of diamonds from a representative of the Soviet Union. He knew that raw diamonds were easily sold and couldn't be traced. He would have bought more, but that's all they had. After picking up the diamonds, Rifkin bought a ticket to Luxembourg. He knew the customs inspectors were very lazy there. The next day in his Luxembourg hotel room Rifkin looked in disbelief at his bed. More than 250,000 diamonds were poured on top of it. Almost 9,000 carats. Nearly four pounds. And the Security Pacific bank didn't have a clue that anything was wrong.

Why can't all Christians be more like Stanley Rifkin? Jesus wants you to be! [Luke 16:8]

#2119

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John List’s neighbors in suburban Westfield, New Jersey, liked him well enough, even though he was standoffish and a little odd. It was his habit, for instance, to wear a business suit when he mowed the lawn surrounding the huge, shabby mansion where he lived with his wife, Helen, their three children, and his aging mother. In November 1971 he told the neighbors that he was going to tend to a sick relative in North Carolina. He never returned.

A month later police entered the darkened house. Nothing had prepared them for what they found. Funereal organ music was coming from a central sound system, and in the mansion’s ballroom the decomposing bodies of 45-year-old Helen List, Patricia, 16, John junior, 15, and Frederick, 13, were laid out neatly on the floor. Alma List, John’s 85-year-old mother, was discovered upstairs. All five victims had been shot in the head.

A letter addressed to List’s Lutheran minister was taped to a filing cabinet in the house. “I know what has been done is wrong from all that I have been taught and that any reasons I give will not make it right,” the letter began. “I wasn’t earning anywhere near enough to support us. Everything I tried seemed to fall to pieces.”

The letter cataloged a series of family disasters, from heavy debt to his wife’s lingering illness. He had lost one job after another. His daughter Patricia had turned into a rebellious teenager, fascinated by the occult and intent on a career in theater. Her interests, List wrote, would interfere with her “continuing to be a Christian.” He professed to see a positive spiritual benefit in the murders, noting that “at least I’m certain that all have gone to heaven now.”

Eighteen years went by without a sign of List. Then in 1989 the television program “America’s Most Wanted” profiled the case and presented a plaster bust of what he would look like now. Immediately a co-worker in Virginia called the police. He was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to five consecutive life terms.

Was there any merit in John List’s intent to solve his troubles in this way? Ironically, List had been unaware of owning a treasure that could have solved his financial problems. In the ceiling of the ballroom where he’d shot his wife and children was a stained-glass skylight made by the renowned turn-of-the-century glass artisan Louis Comfort Tiffany. At the time of the murders the skylight was worth at least $100,000 - twice what List had paid for the house.

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Update: It turns out this story is a rumor that started in the 1970s.

How to defuse an angry person. Our goal is not just to find ways to be less

hassled by cranky people, but to become agents of the Kingdom of God, to

penetrate the age of rage.

1. It starts with a basic commitment to act in love.

a. Retaliation is natural.

b. Christians can act in love because our actions are not contingent

on the actions of others.

2. Focus on listening rather than defending or escaping.

3. In the face of extreme anger, de-escalate.

4. Honestly face your own "default" responses in dealing with angry people.

5. Be wary of close friendships with chronically angry people.

6. Commit yourself to the art of anger management.

Why not commit a crime?

If we can answer this one question, we can solve the crime problem.

The massive crime bill that lawmakers passed last fall contains a chilling confession: They haven’t a clue what causes crime. The bill earmarks several billion dollars to create a host of national commissions, task forces, studies, advisory boards — and even a presidential summit — all to study the causes of crime. The tragic irony is that we’re spending billions of dollars asking the wrong question. The question we ought to be asking is, What causes virtue? Why do most people, most of the time, refrain from crime? Answer that question and we can begin to solve crime.

History is littered with failed explanations of crime. In the nineteenth century, Cesare Lombroso believed criminals could be identified by physical features — sloping foreheads and long arms; but no physical trait correlates universally with criminal behavior. In this century, sociologist Edwin Sutherland blamed crime on the influence of bad environments; but many criminals ply illegal trades chosen on their own. Marxist analysis blames poverty for crime; but wealth is no guarantee of virtue. During the 1977 New York City blackout, most looters were employed workers who didn’t need the things they stole.

After an exhaustive 17-year study, psychiatrist Samuel Yochelson and psychologist Stanton Samenow concluded that all the standard explanations of crime are dead ends. Their own work suggests that crime is rooted instead in the way people think. Our thinking guides our choices; choices become habits; habits create character. They write: “Even when a specific crime, such as assault, has not been planned in advance, it is a matter of a criminal’s responding in a habitual manner.”

This approach aligns squarely with biblical teaching: In the words of Proverbs, “As a man thinks, so he is.” Perhaps it is time to stop trying to explain crime and start asking how to persuade people to think differently — to make moral choices that create virtuous character.

In a recent speech, theologian Michael Novak drew a striking parallel to economics. Economists are forever seeking the cause of poverty, Novak noted. But the fact is that throughout human history, most people lived at the subsistence level. The affluence of the modern age began when Adam Smith turned the question around: He asked what causes wealth. If we can identify the systemic forces that create new wealth, we can nurture those forces until potentially everyone can prosper.

By the same logic, Novak said, there’s nothing mysterious about why people commit crime. As the Book of James says, you covet things you cannot have, and so you quarrel, fight, and kill. Crime is endemic to the human condition. The more significant question is how to encourage virtue. How can we create self-governing republics where citizens police themselves?

The answer begins with “as a man thinks.” The historic function of intellectual leaders, says sociologist Philip Rieff, is to assert a culture’s “communal purpose” through its normative ideals and moral demands. But modern elites have abandoned that function; instead, they exalt personal choice over communal purpose, individual liberation over moral demands. The result is an ethic of autonomy that undercuts internal restraints on impulses.

That approach is clearly bankrupt. A recent Newsweek poll found that three- quarters of Americans believe our country is “in spiritual and moral decline.” The U.S. Senate has created a Character Counts Caucus. William Bennett’s Book of Virtues tops the bestseller lists.

Yet virtue cannot be learned from textbooks. As Aristotle said, character is inculcated through communities — families, neighborhoods, churches — which demand moral accountability and give us models to imitate. The current ferment over crime presents an extraordinary opportunity for Christians to make the case for virtue. Secular institutions, racked by relativism and autonomy, cannot speak to the issue correctly. Only we can.

Our efforts must begin in our own families. The family is the first school of human instruction, where the deepest tracks of character are laid down, where our moral heritage is passed on to the next generation, where conscience is formed. Through family life we nurture the virtues needed to revive a decaying society. As Novak puts it, our country “ought to have 250,000,000 policemen — called consciences.” And when those consciences are on guard, “it is surprising how few police are needed on the streets.”

Second, our churches must become redeemed communities — what Richard John Neuhaus calls “communities of character in a sea of mendacity” — serving as models to the secular world.

Finally, churches must aggressively equip laypeople with a biblical world- view, informed by the classical understanding of virtue — temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice. Only then can Christians contend for virtue in the public arena.

For many evangelicals, this will take fresh thinking. We have a right tradition of personal piety, but we have lost sight of an older tradition of public virtue. Piety turns inward to cultivate the heart; virtue turns outward to build the community.

Given today’s frenzy over crime, it is no surprise that Congress is pouring billions of dollars into misguided studies directed at the wrong question. This is a time when Christians should lead the way — not only in asking the right question but, even more important, in modeling the right answer.

Copyright (c) 1995 CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

#3540

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EDITORS' NOTE: The following comments about the nation's crime problem were voiced by Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, in a news conference prior to his address to the Southern Baptist Pastors' Conference in Atlanta.

We're at a moment in American life where our liberties are at stake. Not so much religious liberties, although they're certainly under assault. But our liberties as a free people ... because crime and fear have become so pervasive in American life that Americans will make the Faustian bargain ... that people in every society have made through the centuries -- and that is, when you're overcome with fear, you will trade your liberties for order.

In 20 years of prison ministry, in 69 countries, with 50,000 volunteers in America, visiting the homes of 430,000 kids last Christmas with Angel Tree gifts, I think we probably know the mentality of the people in prison and the subculture which produces most of the crime in America about as well as any group possibly could. We've lived among them.

I've watched over 20 years an incredible coarsening in American culture, a dulling of the conscience, a loss of moral sensitivities and moral training, a weakening and a breakdown of character in American life. These kids that are coming off the streets today are different -- completely different -- from the kids 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago.

The crime problem is largely a juvenile problem. If you took the juvenile crime rate out of the American crime rate, if you took the inner-city crime rate out of the American crime rate, you'd have about the same crime rate as Belgium.

But the complete collapse of the inner-city cultures and the complete collapse of the family structure among large segments of our population has created a crisis of character that really threatens to overwhelm us. I think the moral collapse at the center of American life has overwhelmed the capacity of our institutions to respond. And that's why we're building prisons faster and faster and faster and faster, and the crime rate keeps going up. It's gone up 560 percent since the 1960s.

But it's the character of crime that really has American people frightened to death -- and rightly so, because these kids are committing crimes without any remorse, without any reason, without any motive, without any purpose. ... (Their) conscience has never been cultivated.

I was in a prison in Indiana and it was probably the toughest place I've been in the last 10 years, maybe since Angola or Statesville or Walla Walla. This was Michigan City, Ind. I've been there five times. And the guys were looking at me -- these kids, 19, 20, 21 -- with the hardest eyes. ... There was literally apartheid -- the black inmates were over here and the white inmates were over here. When (former Chicago Bears linebacker) Mike Singletary spoke, the black inmates responded. When I spoke, the white inmates responded.

When it was over, I turned to Chuck Adkins, the assistant warden who's been there for 20 years. I said, "Chuck, has this place changed?"

I'd been there five times. I said, "It sure feels like a different place to me."

He said, "Changed? Ten years ago, I could talk to these kids about right and wrong. Today, I talk to them and they have no idea what I'm talking about." He said, "The biggest administrative problem I have in this prison is, the older inmates ask for protection from the younger inmates coming in off the streets." And that's the population group in America that's growing the fastest.

Now, ... we've reached the point of saturation, and the moral problem has overwhelmed the institutions' ability to respond. That's true. There simply is no institutional response to the juvenile crime problem ... . We don't have one. And I talk to corrections people all across America, and they tell me ... there's not a thing we can do.

And we as a church aren't there, taking the one thing that will make a difference -- the life-changing power of Jesus Christ to those inmates in prison and particularly to their families and particularly to those kids that are coming out on the street.

And I fear, I tremble, I shudder at what will happen to American culture.

________

Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press

“More Evidence That This World Is Full Of Complete Idiots”

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1. Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.

2. A man in Johannesburg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other's head.

3. A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the film's depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a chair while watching the film.

4. The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits.

5. A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and back pain.

6. Swedish business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to be copied, only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper in seconds when a worker confused the copier with the shredder.

7. A convict broke out of jail in Washington DC, then a few days later accompanied his girlfriend to her trial for robbery. At lunch, he went out for a sandwich. She needed to see him, and thus had him paged. Police officers recognized his name and arrested him as he returned to the courthouse in a car he had stolen over the lunch hour.

8. Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message “He's lying” was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the “lie detector” was working, the suspect confessed.

9. When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call the police. They still refused, so the robber called the police and was arrested.

10. A Los Angeles man who later said he was “tired of walking,” stole a steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped aboard and brought the vehicle to a stop.

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More “idiot” stories, submitted by Diane Thompson of Succasunna, New Jersey:

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Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9, or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half dozen nuggets. “We don't have half dozen nuggets”, said the teenager at the counter. “You don't?” I replied. “We only have six, nine, or twelve,” was the reply. “So I can't order a half-dozen nuggets, but I can order six?” “That's right.” So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets.

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The paragraph above doesn't amaze me because of what happened a couple of months ago: I was checking out at the local Foodland with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those dividers that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the divider looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the bar code she said to me “Do you know how much this is?” I said to her, “I've changed my mind, I don't think I'll buy that today.” She said, “OK,” and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened...

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A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM “thingy.”

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I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. Do you need some help?” I asked. She replied, “I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenient store) would have a battery to fit this?” “Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm too?” I asked. “No, just this remote thingy,” she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, “Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries - it's a long walk."

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Several years ago, we had an intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, “I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?” “Just use copier machine paper,” the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five “blank” copies.

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I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in “Twister.” I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the “cruise control” and then went in the back to make a sandwich.

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IDIOTS AT WORK...

Sign in a gas station: “Coke - 49 cents. Two for a dollar.”

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IDIOTS & COMPUTERS

My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: “I've got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?”

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IDIOTS ARE EASY TO PLEASE

I was sitting in my science class, when the teacher commented that the next day would be the shortest day of the year. My lab partner became visibly excited, cheering and clapping. I explained to her that the amount of daylight changes, not the actual amount of time. Needless to say, she was very disappointed.

#4519

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A few years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Bulgaria, which was still in the grip of a Marxist regime. Though the Iron Curtain had fallen, communist officials in Bulgaria had simply adopted new labels and stayed in power. While there, I had a chance to bear witness of the faith to the Bulgarian minister of justice - a fascinating experience that illustrates how important it is for Christians to understand worldviews in order to evangelize effectively in today's post-Christian world.

The minister had heard me contend publicly that the solution to crime is moral reformation and, as we sat down together, he began firing questions at me.

"Yesterday you said crime is a moral problem," he said briskly. "Do you say that in a sociological sense?"

"No," I replied, "crime is a matter of individuals choosing to do wrong -- a moral failure."

He demurred politely. "It seems to me that crime is caused by social and economic forces," he said.

"No," I responded, "the moral dimension transcends social forces."

Back and forth we went, and gradually it dawned on me that the minister of justice did not even understand the concepts I was using. He had been educated within a Marxist system that regards people as merely complex forms of matter. Everything else -- including religion and morality -- is ultimately reduced to economic interests. The minister could not comprehend how I could treat moral choices as foundational for human behavior.

To reach this man with the gospel, I realized that I first had to dismantle his materialist worldview. So I switched gears and talked about Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher who taught the reality of the spiritual dimension. I spoke of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the great Russian novelist, who probed themes of evil and redemption. I progressed to the biblical doctrine of the Fall, and the reality of moral evil-so much in evidence in the totalitarian systems of the 20th century. This same moral evil, I argued, is the real cause of crime.

Gradually, light began to dawn in the minister's eyes, and eventually I was able to share the Gospel with him.

Francis Schaeffer urged Christians to practice pre-evangelism-to dismantle a person's false worldview before presenting the Gospel. In today's post- Christian culture, pre-evangelism is more important than ever. We can not simply begin with the message of salvation, because people no longer understand basic theological terms, such as "sin" and "salvation."

Our model is Paul addressing the Greeks on Mars Hill. Paul did not begin with the message of salvation but with creation. Anyone should be able to figure out that God is no golden idol, Paul argued: Since God created us as personal beings, He Himself must be a personal being -- and thus someone to whom we are personally accountable for our actions. Only after establishing who God is, and our relationship to Him, did Paul preach about sin and resurrection.

This is the approach we must take in our modern Athens as well. To learn how, read How Now Shall We Live? a new book I have co-authored with "BreakPoint" executive editor Nancy Pearcey.

You don't have to travel to Bulgaria - just talk with your neighbors or the parents in your kids' school - and you'll find they no longer even understand basic biblical concepts. We need to learn to how to speak their language in order to demonstrate that Christianity answers the basic questions of life better than any other worldview.

We need to become nothing less than worldview missionaries in our own backyards.

___________________________

Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

ROCKAWAY TWP., NJ - Nobody would have blamed Steven McDonald for holding a grudge. But the former New York City detective chose to forgive the teenager whose bullets left him paralyzed.

July 12, 1986, was supposed to be just another day of police work. McDonald, then 29, was investigating a series of bicycle thefts in Central Park. Within minutes of confronting three teenage suspects, three bullets fired by a 15-year-old boy knocked him into a pool of blood.

"I was confused, very confused," McDonald said. "I began feeling numbness. I thought I was dreaming. I said this couldn't be happening. Then I heard my partner scream into the radio 10-13, 10-13, and I knew I was in trouble."

Yesterday afternoon, McDonald, 43, bowed his head in prayer with parishioners at St. Clement's Church and spoke to them about faith and forgiveness. He addressed the audience from his wheelchair, on the back of which a New York Police Department emblem and American flag were affixed.

"In losing everything I found profound reason to continue," McDonald told the audience. "I had to free myself from the difficult emotions, the wasted emotions I was feeling and return to my wife and my child."

Eight months before the shooting, McDonald had married Patti Ann Norris. When she received news that her husband had been shot, the then 23-year-old woman was three months pregnant with their first and only child. Connor Patrick McDonald was born January 29, 1987, to a 29-year-old quadriplegic father. McDonald's wife and son were not present yesterday.

Instead of focusing attention on the fact that he was unable to hold his son, McDonald said be thanked God because he lived to see him being born.

"Life is not always easy," he said, smiling. "I needed to look inside myself. I had always struggled with good and evil and I knew I needed forgiveness for my sins. It was hard to ask for forgiveness without first forgiving.

"I learned a lot about prayer. I learned that prayer is something we do in our own time and the answers come in God's time."

The 15-year-old who shot McDonald was convicted of attempted murder and served 10 years in jail. Upon his release, he called McDonald and asked for forgiveness. A few days later, the man was killed in a motorcycle accident in New York City.

In addition to losing his physical abilities, McDonald regrets being unable to complete his career as a police officer. When he was sworn into the police department in December 1984, he became the eighth member of his family to serve the City of New York.

"Together with my grandfather, my father and my uncles we have served the city for a combined 200 years," he said, often pausing to take a breath of oxygen.

"My younger brother is still a detective. At the time I was shot I was a hard-charging police officer who wanted to clean up the streets of New York and couldn't do it fast enough."

McDonald credits God for the power to live and continue on.

"It took a great act of wickedness to help me realize that the world didn't have more to offer than heaven does," McDonald said.

McDonald was invited to the church by parishioners Bob and Eileen Morton of Rockaway Township. The couple had read the officer's autobiography and were inspired at hearing him tell his story about two years ago.

____________________

Clementina Pope can be reached at (973) 428-6633 or cpope@morristo.gannett.com

This weekend scholars and activists from all over America will be in Washington for a conference, at which I will be speaking, discussing the idea of "restorative justice," a new way to understand how our justice system ought to function.

Most secular justice systems developed over the past century have dealt primarily with rehabilitation or retribution. Liberals believed that if we took people out of their sad environments, where they were victims of poverty or oppression, and put them in "reformatories," they could be reformed. This was the model we called "rehabilitation." Though noble- sounding, this system was based on a false premise, that people are basically good.

It was also an abysmal failure. We kept building more and more prisons, and the recidivism rate kept increasing. As I discovered in prison, no one is rehabilitated inside a cold, steel warehouse.

Conservatives had a different view. They thought if we got tough enough, we could scare people out of crime. That meant tougher retribution. But the result of that was a building boom in the eighties and nineties that has left this country with the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. And the repeat-offender rate remains the same.

Neither approach worked -- and neither restores the peace of the community that was shattered by crime.

Restorative justice, on the other hand, restores that peace, and it's a biblical concept. The Jews used the word "Shalom," not as a greeting as we use it, but to describe the real peace of the community -- that is, maintaining the right moral order.

Restorative justice seeks not only to punish the offender but then to re-integrate him into the community. That's what's behind programs like Transition Of Prisoners (TOP) and InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI). We insist that offenders be mentored before they can be released back into society.

And it's important to enact laws that ensure that the community is restored, like restitution, which pays back the victim, and community punishment, which keeps offenders near home. The rights of the victim have to be respected as well, and wherever possible, victims and offenders need to be reconciled.

"Fine," you may say, "but does restorative justice really work?" Just ask Mrs. Washington. Twenty years ago her daughter was murdered, and the man convicted of the crime steadfastly refused to admit his guilt. Refused, that is, until he became involved in our prison ministry in Texas. When Ron Flowers came to Christ he realized he needed to come clean, and admit his sin, and he finally confessed what he had done.

Knowing nothing of the confession, Mrs. Washington at the same time felt led to forgive Ron for the murder, and she wrote the parole board withdrawing her objections to his pending parole. Then she learned that he had come to Christ and confessed to her daughter's murder. She met him at the prison one night, and after a tearful, wrenching night, they were reconciled. Later, Mrs. Washington took Ron under her wing, and called him her adopted son. She then mentored him on his release from prison.

That's restoring shalom, the peace of the community that is fractured by crime.

Restorative justice, you see, defies the old model of corrections because it changes hearts and minds -- and it heals the wounds of communities broken by crime. That's something all Americans are yearning for.

___________________

Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

In Lowell, Massachusetts, a woman pushed her grocery cart into the store's express line -- nothing unusual about that. But the problem was she had more items than she was supposed to have -- only one extra item, but that was enough to infuriate the woman in line behind her.

The two customers had words. Out in the parking lot, they had a few more. And then, Customer Number Two -- who has a long criminal record -- lost it. She allegedly grabbed Customer Number One by the hair and beat her senseless.

On a radio talk show, the host referred to the incident as "Express Line Rage." Some callers actually applauded the attacker. Now, I'll be the first to admit that shoppers who abuse express lines are incredibly rude, but that's no excuse for beating people up.

Unbelievably, some people, however, want to provide an excuse. They want us to believe that people who lose their tempers are not obnoxious or criminal -- they're just (sadly) sick.

Examples of this trend are everywhere. For instance, a few years ago a psychologist told Congress that road rage is a "certifiable mental illness" -- one from which more than half of all Americans suffer. And last year, a journal called MONITOR ON PSYCHOLOGY wrote about "counterproductive workplace behavior" -- otherwise known as "desk" rage. If you've ever pounded on your keyboard and shouted some obscenities, the men in the white coats may come looking for you.

But what happens when we redefine all unacceptable behavior as mental illness?

C. S. Lewis anticipated this shift in the modern view of crime and punishment in a brilliant essay called "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment." Traditionally, Lewis wrote, punishment is understood as a matter of balancing the scales of justice. But the "humanitarian theory of punishment" throws that standard out.

Denying that punishment is an objective matter of justice, this theory removes criminal activity from the realm of morality and applies a therapeutic response. So new theories have attempted to justify punishment as a cure or a deterrent.

Well, these theories have failed to cure or deter crime, and Lewis explains that punishment without a sense of objective morality ultimately sows the seeds of Orwellian tyranny.

"If crime and disease are to be regarded as the same thing," he says, "it follows that any state of mind which our masters choose to call 'disease' can be treated as a crime; and compulsorily cured."

Lewis's warning has become horrifyingly real in North Korea, where Christian believers are considered mentally ill; the government attempts to torture them into "sanity."

That's why we Christians must help our neighbors to understand the dangers of redefining every crime -- and, indeed, all sin -- as mental disorder. When someone beats up an express line shopper for sneaking an extra bag of Doritos into the line, we ought to call this attack by its proper name: Not a mental illness to be treated, but a crime to be punished.

Sources:

"Register Rage Suspect Claims She Was Victim," WCVB-TV Boston, 22 February 2002.

"Checkout Rage Suspect Pleads Not Guilty," WCVB-TV Boston, 25 February 2002.

Jennifer Daw, "Road rage, air rage and now 'desk rage,'" MONITOR ON PSYCHOLOGY vol. 32, no. 7 (July/August 2001).

Leah Garchik, "Don't Get Mad, Just Stick on a New Label," SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 26 October 1997.

For further reading:

C. S. Lewis, "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment," from GOD IN THE DOCK, 1970.

Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, THE PROBLEM OF EVIL (Tyndale House, 1999).

BreakPoint Commentary No. 020301, "Eyewitness to Atrocity: Calling Evil By Its Name."

_________________________

Copyright © 2002 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. 'BreakPoint with Chuck Colson' is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

I once read about some newlyweds that got among their wedding gifts

received two tickets to a very fine show, with the notation "Guess

Who?" on the tickets. They went to the play and when they returned

home all their wedding presents and furniture were gone. A note was

left on the door that read, "Now You Know!"

- Unknown

Crime has become so bad that I understand the police department

is considering an unlisted telephone number if it gets worse.

- Unknown

At the recent meeting of the Congress of Criminal Anthropology at

Geneva, Switzerland, Dr. Legrain, physician-in-chief of the asylum of

Ville-Evrard, gave the results of his investigations, which extended

over a period of years and showed how sin, like disease, is

transmitted from drunken father to appetite enslaved son; how in such

soil the seeds of crime and madness develop and ripen in the last

generation into sterile idiocy and the extinction of the race.

First Generation

He traced the course of four generations of drinkers in 215

families. One hundred and sixty-eight families showed unmistakable

symptoms of degeneracy; 63 cases of mild insanity; 88 were mentally

unsound; 45 at times dangerously insane; many of the children were

weaklings and died at an early age, 6 out of 8 in one case, 10 out of

16 in another. These 6 latter who remained, were all feeble-minded and

had epileptic fits and a prey to evil instincts. Thirty-nine families

found convulsions; epilepsy in 52; hysteria in 16; meningitis in 5;

108 families out of the 215 counted one out of every two individuals

victims of periodical alcoholic delirium; 106 families of the 215,

insanity had developed.

Second Generation

Ninety-eight observations gave the following: 54 families had one

or more members who were imbeciles or idiots 23 families there were

those who were morally irresponsible, untimely births, extraordinary

mortality and hereditary diseases caused the children to die in

appalling numbers. At this stage fathers and mothers had become common

drunkards with but eight exceptions. In 42 families he found chronic

cases of convulsions, and epilepsy in 40. In 23 families insanity

exists.

Third Generation

Seven observations, or families, gave him a total of 17 children;

all were mentally unsound and physically stunted; 2 were insane, 4

subject to convulsions, 2 epilepsy, 2 hysteria, 1 meningitis, 3

scrofula.

Summing up the 814 cases found in the 215 families, he found 42.2

percent. were alcoholics, 60.9 percent are degenerates, 13.9 percent

morally irresponsible, 22.7 percent have convulsions, 19 percent are

incurably insane; 174 disappeared from this world before or almost

before having drawn their first breath; 93 cases of tuberculosis,

which bring the total of those who died from hereditary alcoholism up

to one-third.

There is no fifth generation, for the last line is a microcephalous

idiot. Thus Moses was right, as proven by science, when he said, "God

visits the iniquities of the parents unto the third and fourth

generation of them that hate him." There is no fifth.

By J. Wilbur Chapan, "Present Day Parables."

Even if you think abortion is immoral, you should take comfort in knowing that Roe v Wade helped reduce crime. At least that's what a pair of social scientists is telling us in their study just published in Harvard's Quarterly Journal of Economics.

The authors claim not to take sides in the abortion debate, but they maintain that legal abortion accounts for as much as half of the recent drop in the crime rate.

Pro-life groups challenge the study's credibility. But the real question is not accuracy: It's whether we deal with crime by attacking its roots, or by attacking unborn children instead.

The study, "Legalized Abortion and Crime," notes that in five states that legalized abortion before the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v Wade case, crime started falling slightly earlier than in other parts of the country. The study found that states with especially high rates of abortion before Roe have experienced large declines in crime recently, even after considering other factors.

The authors attribute this to the fact that the majority of women seeking abortions are poor, young, unmarried, and minority.

Well, no one should be surprised that a drop in the number of children born to single and poor women might reduce crime. We know that a high proportion of the young men who commit the most serious crimes are born to the kind of mothers who were having abortions in the 1970s. The question is, what do we do with this information?

First, we ought to be aware that studies like these can condone unspeakable evil. Take the case of eugenics. For example, in the 1920s, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger called for the elimination of what she called "inferior races" and "morons, misfits, and the maladjusted." Sanger blamed them for most crime.

Hitler's death camps for "inferior races" showed us where such thinking can lead. But eugenics is still with us. When tests reveal a Down syndrome baby, for example, doctors often pressure the parents to abort. And sadly, eight out of ten do.

This most recent study plants in the public mind the idea that abortion is a social good that stops future crime. There's no doubt that among the forty million American children killed by abortion, some potential criminals lost their lives. But none were certain to become criminals -- whatever their social circumstances. Social scientists would love for us to believe that they can predict behavior with certainty. But the same ghettos that produce the criminals these scientists decry also gave us musical geniuses like the jazz great, Louis Armstrong, and the brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson at Johns Hopkins.

And as Christians we know that no life can be sacrificed for any supposed social good. No life is worthless; no life is irredeemable. I have learned that and seen it many times over in twenty-five years of prison ministry.

There's a better way to combat social ills than imitating Hitler's death camps. Instead of building abortion clinics in poor neighborhoods, we ought to be supporting desperate women and their children with Crisis Pregnancy Centers and programs like Angel Tree, which bring hope to the crime-prone children of prisoners.

In the process, we'll demonstrate that the answer to crime is not killing more babies, but bringing Christ's love to those in need.

For further reference:

"The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime." Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2001.

As she sat in her boyfriend’s car, a young Texas woman named Dee Dee Washington was shot and killed — an innocent bystander of a drug deal gone bad. For 14 years, the man who fired the shot, Ron Flowers, never admitted to killing her — not until, that is, Ron was admitted to the InnerChange Freedom Initiative® (IFI), the prison program launched by Prison Fellowship in Texas.

IFI applies principles of restorative justice by confronting offenders with the harm they have done to their victims. During one of IFI’s Victim Awareness sessions, Ron finally admitted that he did commit the murder, and he prayed that his victim’s family would forgive him. He wrote a letter to Dee Dee’s mother, Mrs. Anna Washington, expressing his repentance and deep remorse.

For her part, Mrs. Washington had written angry letters every year to the parole board, urging them to deny Ron parole. But when Ron confessed, Mrs. Washington felt an overwhelming conviction that she should meet the man who had killed her daughter.

Prison Fellowship staff carefully prepared Mrs. Washington and Ron for the meeting. Mrs. Washington finally could ask the questions that virtually every victim wants to ask: “Why did you do it?” “How did it happen?” Ron reassured her that her daughter was not involved in the drug deal. As Ron told her about the day that he killed her daughter, Mrs. Washington took his hands in hers and said, “I forgive you.”

I was in Houston for Ron’s graduation from IFI. As Ron crossed the stage to receive his diploma, Mrs. Washington rose from her seat and walked over to embrace Ron, the man who had murdered her daughter. She then told all of us in the audience, “This young man is my adopted son.”

After Ron’s release, Mrs. Washington helped him adjust to the community, sat with him at church, had him over for dinner, and even stood by him when he was married.

Only God could bring about such reconciliation and healing.

Unlike our criminal justice system, which focuses solely on public safety and order, restorative justice is also about repairing the harm caused by crime. An important part of the reparative process is victim-offender reconciliation. These meetings allow “victims, offenders, and community members” to discuss what happened and its “aftermath” — to seek repentance and forgiveness.

This is more than an ill-defined sense of “closure.” Coming face-to-face with victims can cause offenders to think about their actions and their consequences in a way that punishment alone never can.

Anyone who has spent time around inmates knows that many view themselves as victims — something that is harder to do when you have spoken to the real victims. Research suggests that inmates who meet with their victims are more likely to pay court-ordered restitution than those who do not.

You see, as I have said countless times, crime is a moral and spiritual issue. That being the case, rehabilitation can happen only when offenders see their offenses as more than rule-breaking: They must see them as a transgression against God and other people.

While promoting order is the God-given role of government, there is more to justice than police, prosecutors, and prison. Justice also means repairing the harm caused by crime, which requires going where government cannot go — to the human heart.

________

Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #8849]

Long Valley Presbyterian Church (NJ) is a dynamic church of 500 members. In May 2007 they hired a new youth pastor. David Evans seemed like a good fit and was very popular with the kids. But this week [July 2007] he and his wife were arrested.

The police allege Pastor Evans and his wife tried to extort $20,000 from a local family. Evans sent the family a letter threatening to kill either a parent, a child, or both if the money wasn’t delivered. At the drop-off point they had their kids in the car, and even used their 8-year-old as a lookout while the father located the cash in a hollowed-out tree! About four different kinds of police were there to arrest them.

What would bring them to do such a thing? Desperate financial needs? A desire for a youth pastor on a modest income to have as much as everyone else? Pure evil?

It didn’t come out of the blue. If the charges are true, I suspect the Evans family spent much time in preparation. There were probably some Sunday mornings when they contemplated the plot they were brewing. Sin never “just happens” - we plan for it. As James says, “each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (1:14-15).

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #14042]

[Alas, this appear to be an urban legend - see http://www.snopes.com/crime/safety/biscuit.asp]

From the AP wires came this story a few months back [1999]:

Linda Burnett, 23, went to a nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries. Several people noticed her sitting in her car with the windows rolled up and with her eyes closed, with both hands behind the back of her head. One customer who had been at the store for a while became concerned and walked over to the car. He noticed that Linda's eyes were now open, and she looked very strange. He asked her if she was okay, and Linda replied that she'd been shot in the back of the head, and had been holding her brains in for over an hour. The man called the paramedics, who broke into the car because the doors were locked and Linda refused to remove her hands from her head. When they finally got in, they found that Linda had a wad of bread dough on the back of her head. A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded from the heat, making a loud noise that sounded like a gun shot, and the wad of dough hit her in the back of her head. When she reached back to find out what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains. She initially passed out, but quickly recovered and tried to hold her brains in for over an hour until someone noticed and came to her aid.

Our perception of reality will always affect our response to reality. That’s perhaps not the deepest thought you’ve heard, but its truth should not be ignored. The way in which we digest and process what goes on around us will always influence how we respond to those around us. Linda Burnett lives in a culture in which gun shots are more common than exploding biscuit tubes. Her perception affected her response. Perceptions are nothing more than the outworking of expectations.

"Forgiveness is a beautiful word until you are the one who has to forgive," said Debbie Morris, who was brutally raped as a 16-year-old by Robert Lee Willie, the prisoner whose life was chronicled in the 1995 movie, "Dead Man Walking," starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

Sharing her testimony, Morris said, "Forgiveness is a difficult thing to do sometimes. It takes courage. It takes faith."

Morris, now living in Mandeville, Louisiana, with her family, was kidnapped along with her teenage boyfriend, Mark, taken to a remote area in south Alabama and viciously attacked.

Morris recounted her thoughts when she was raped for the first time, while her boyfriend was confined in the trunk of their car.

"I would survive, no matter what I have to endure," she remembered thinking, acknowledging her resolve had to have come from the God she had accepted two years before.

She also remembered wanting to remember every single detail, the look of her captors' faces, so that she could later help convict her attackers. "I was so filled with hate and with the need for revenge," she said.

While she was repeatedly raped over a 24-hour period, her boyfriend was taken into the woods, hung on a tree, shot in the head and stabbed in the side, his neck slashed, and left for dead. Miraculously, he survived and is married to another woman.

Morris recalled thinking in the midst of the attacks, "Where is God right now -- the God that I love? Does he even exist?"

That answer would come much later for Morris when Willie was seated in the courtroom answering for his actions.

"Why did you let her go?" Willie had been asked. "I know it was a stupid thing to do," he responded. "But there was something different about her. When I looked into her eyes, I saw love."

Morris could not believe her ears. Love? Disgust, contempt, hatred, but surely not love, she said.

"When I thought that I had been abandoned by God, he really was there," she said. What Willie saw was not her love, she said, but the love of Jesus Christ in her, who was looking back at him.

After long, grueling trials, Vaccaro and Willie were sentenced for numerous crimes. Willie was given the death penalty, which at that time in Louisiana meant the electric chair.

"Even with the revenge that I felt," Morris said, "[the punishment] was a heavy burden for a 16-year-old to carry into life."

Though justice had been served, and it was time to go on with life as it was before, Morris felt bitter and scared and her whole world was turned upside down. "It didn't matter to me anymore whether I was a cheerleader or homecoming queen," she said. "It didn't matter if I even passed."

Fearing the state psychiatric hospital in a nearby city, Morris kept her depressed feelings to herself, which eventually led her to drop out of high school, where she was once an honor student.

She turned to alcohol, like her parents, even after promising earlier in her life that she never would.

When the time came for justice to be carried out through Willie's execution, Morris realized that all she wanted was peace. "I had held on to this hope that once justice was served, I would be healed" and experience peace and resolution.

"There's no justice in this world," she recounted. "There is no justice in our justice system. We answer to a much higher justice system."

Morris realized that the people, alcohol and other things she had tried did not give her that peace. Instead, she asked God to reveal himself to her again, to help her forgive the man who had done these terrible things to her.

The morning after Willie was executed, Morris admitted that she was not healed immediately, but she did feel a burden lifted from her. Knowing that forgiveness was a process, Morris set about to learn about complete forgiveness.

"I learned that I had turned my back on the Lord, and I needed his forgiveness," she shared." Forgiveness is something I did for me," she said. "Robert Lee Willie did not benefit that night because of my forgiveness. He died in the electric chair that night. But I got new life when I forgave."

Morris recounted how later, one night when she was nursing her newborn son, she began to think of Willie's mother, who had aided and abetted her son in escaping from prison on a prior conviction, and who had lied about her on the witness stand.

"I began to realize that there was a time when Robert's mother held her newborn son in her arms, dreaming of the life ahead for him," Morris said. "For a moment, I felt a bond with her. For the first time, I understood a love so strong that we might do something wrong to protect that love.

"God softened my heart toward this mother," Morris told the WMU audience.

Later, when Morris saw the movie "Dead Man Walking," she saw the scene when Willie's mother visited her son for the last time before his execution. She had to say goodbye without wrapping her arms around her child one more time.

"Our hearts must go out to these women," Morris said tearfully.

She related how she later had a burning desire to go to her rapist's mother, to ask her for forgiveness for holding a grudge against her, but found that she had died from cancer.

"I realized, again, that I was the one who needed forgiveness," she said, noting that forgiveness has different outcomes. "God's may not always include restoration, but forgiveness is for everyone. "Though she had understood that intellectually, it wasn't until she went on TV to share her story that she realized there was still a part of her that felt Willie did not deserve to be in heaven.

She has since understood that God's love is boundless and his mercies are unfailing for all people. Though there was no evidence that Willie ever repented or accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior, Morris said that if he did accept Jesus in the final minutes or seconds of his life, she will welcome him in heaven, where she knows she will be.

"As a Christian, I realized that I was required to forgive," she said, before challenging her audience to examine their own lives.

"Look at the co-worker who received the promotion you deserved or your husband deserved. Look at the committee member who always thinks their ideas are the best. Even in our churches, look at the catty gossiping that takes place. Think about the people who have children on the same sports teams as your children. Think about your husband's ex-girlfriends or new wife.

"God is very clear about how we should treat these difficult people," she said, drawing from Matthew 5. "We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

"It takes courage to love those who seem unlovable. It takes faith to forgive in our humanness those we declare as unforgivable.

"Will you accept the forgiveness of someone else or forgive someone today?"

Police in Delaware are trying to get a head-start on cracking crimes before they happen by setting up a database that contains a list of people who officers believe are likely to break the law.

Defense attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union oppose the database, which lists names, addresses and photographs of the potential suspects - many of whom have clean slates.

The pictures are being taken by two Wilmington police squads created in June to arrest drug dealers. The units are known in some neighborhoods as "jump-out squads" because they jump out of cars and make quick arrests. Many of the people whose photos have been taken for the file were stopped briefly for loitering and let go.

__________

God takes pictures of future suspects, too - he calls us sinners and everyone qualifies!

*

Chris Carrier of Coral Gables, Florida, was abducted when he was 10 years old. His kidnapper, angry with the boy's family, burned him with cigarettes, stabbed him numerous times with an ice pick, then shot him in the head and left him to die in the Everglades. Remarkably, the boy survived, though he lost sight in one eye. No one was ever arrested.

Recently, a man confessed to the crime. Carrier, now a youth minister, went to see him.

He found David McAllister, a 77-year-old ex-convict, frail and blind, living in a North Miami Beach nursing home. Carrier began visiting often, reading to McAllister from the Bible and praying with him. His ministry opened the door for McAllister to make a profession of faith.

No arrest is forthcoming; after twenty-two years, the statute of limitations on the crime is long past. In Christian Reader (Jan/Feb 98), Carrier says, "While many people can't understand how I could forgive David McAllister, from my point of view I couldn't not forgive him. If I'd chosen to hate him all these years, or spent my life looking for revenge, then I wouldn't be the man I am today, the man my wife and children love, the man God has helped me to be."

Leadership Journal

Spring 1998, Vol.XIX, No. 2, p. 73

_____________________________________________________________________

More complete version from "Why Forgive?" by Johann Christoph Arnold, http://www.plough.com/usa/spiritual/why_forgive/sample.htm

When Miami native Chris Carrier was ten, a former family employee abducted him, assaulted him, shot him in the head, and left him to die in the Florida Everglades. But that isn't the end of the story:

Friday, December 20, 1974, was no ordinary day. It was the

last day of school before the Christmas holidays, and we

got out early.

I stepped off the bus at 1:15 p.m. and began to walk home.

An older-looking man who happened to be walking towards me

on the sidewalk appeared to recognize me. Just two houses

away from home, he introduced himself as a friend of my

father. He told me he was hosting a party for my father and

asked if I would help him with some decorations.

I agreed and walked back up the street with him to the

local youth center where he had parked his motor home. Once

inside the vehicle, I put down my things and made myself

comfortable.

The Miami I knew quickly disappeared as he drove north. In

an area removed from suburban traffic, he stopped on the

side of the road. He claimed that he had missed a turn. He

handed me a map, instructing me to look for a certain

number, and went into the back of the motor home "to get

something."

As I studied the map and waited, I felt a quick sting in

the shoulder, and then another. I turned around to see him

standing behind me with an ice pick in his hand. Then he

pulled me out of my seat and onto the floor. Kneeling over

me, he stabbed me in the chest several times. I pleaded

with him to stop and promised him that if he would let me

go, I wouldn't say anything.

I was immeasurably relieved when he stood up. He told me

that he was going to drop me off somewhere, after which he

would call my father and let him know where I was. He

allowed me to sit in the back of the motor home as he

drove. Yet I was painfully aware that this situation was

beyond my control. When I asked him why he was doing this

to me, he said that my father had "cost him a great deal of

money."

After driving for another hour or so, he turned onto a

dusty side road. He told me this was where my father would

pick me up. We walked out together into the bushes and I

sat down where he told me I should sit. The last thing I

remembered was him walking away.

Six days later, the evening of December 26, Chris was found by a local deer hunter. His head was bloody and his eyes were black. He had been shot through the head. Miraculously, there was no brain damage, but he didn't remember being shot.

In the years that followed, Chris struggled daily with the insecurity of knowing that his abductor was still at large.

Everywhere I went, the fear of what was around the corner,

what was lurking in the shadows, haunted me. I was alarmed

by every noise and motion. Was that a dog? What was that -

is it really just the wind? What was that creak in the next

room? Was someone coming in our back door? For three years

I spent every night without fail in a sleeping bag at the

foot of my parents' bed.

Chris also had to come to terms with the physical limitations caused by his injuries: he was now blind in one eye and could no longer take part in contact sports. And as any teenager would, he worried about his appearance.

Chris resented public mention of his survival, and remembers wondering how this "miracle" could have left him so miserable. Then, at the age of thirteen, he underwent a change, and began to see his nightmare differently. He realized his injuries could have been much worse - in fact, he could have died. He also recognized that staying angry would never change anything. He decided to stop feeling sorry for himself, and to get on with his life instead.

Then, on September 3, 1996, Chris received a telephone call that changed his life once again. It was a detective from the Coral Gables police department, and he was calling to notify him that an elderly man at a local nursing home, David McAllister, had confessed to being his abductor. (He was, though in the eyes of the law there was never enough evidence to bring him to trial.) David had worked as an aide for an elderly uncle in the Carrier family, but had been fired on account of his drinking problems. Chris visited David the following day.

It was an awkward moment, walking into his room, but as

soon as I saw him I was overwhelmed with compassion. The

man I found was not an intimidating kidnapper, but a frail

seventy-seven-year-old who had been blind for the last

half-dozen years.

David's body was ruined by alcoholism and smoking - he

weighed little more than sixty pounds. He had no family, or

if he did, they wanted nothing to do with him, and no

friends. The only material possessions he had were some

pictures that kids in a nearby elementary school had drawn

for him. David had a roommate, but they didn't even know

each other or communicate. Here was a man who faced death

with only his regrets to keep him company.

When I first spoke to David, he was rather callous. I

suppose he thought I was a police officer. A friend who had

accompanied me wisely asked him a few simple questions that

led to him admitting that he had abducted me. He then

asked, "Did you ever wish you could tell that young boy

that you were sorry for what you did?" David answered

emphatically, "I wish I could." That was when I introduced

myself to him.

Unable to see, David clasped my hand and told me he was

sorry for what he had done to me. As he did, I looked down

at him, and it came over me like a wave: Why should anyone

have to face death without family, friends, the joy of life

- without hope? I couldn't do anything but offer him my

forgiveness and friendship.

In the days that followed this dramatic meeting, Chris began to visit David as often as he could, usually bringing along his wife, Leslie, and their two daughters. The two men spent hours talking, reading, and even praying together, and as they did, the old man's hardness gradually melted away.

Throughout that week I shared with him about the victories

of my recovery, and about my life since the horrifying day

he had tried to kill me. I'd graduated from high school,

from college, and then from grad school. I had married; I

had a beautiful wife and family. I shared these things with

him so that he could understand, in the way the ancient

Israelite Joseph tried to get his brothers to understand,

after they had abandoned him, "That which you intended for

evil, God has used for good." I let him know that he had

not ruined my life, in the end, and that there was nothing

between us now.

Three weeks later, just hours after Chris had tucked his ailing friend into bed for the night, David died.

Chris says it wasn't hard for him to forgive, though the reporters who later took interest in his story still don't understand how or why he did it. They admire his ability to forgive, but cannot understand what compelled him. They always go blank when the subject of forgiveness comes up, he says, and seem more comfortable focusing on the drama of his abduction and the details of his torture. But Chris knows why he forgave David:

There is a very pragmatic reason for forgiving. When we are

wronged, we can either respond by seeking revenge, or we

can forgive. If we choose revenge, our lives will be

consumed by anger. When vengeance is served, it leaves one

empty. Anger is a hard urge to satisfy and can become

habitual. But forgiveness allows us to move on.

There is also a more compelling reason to forgive.

Forgiveness is a gift - it is mercy. It is a gift that I

have received and also given away. In both cases, it has

been completely satisfying.

*

In the classic comedy film, BEDTIME FOR BONZO, a young actor named Ronald Reagan brings home a monkey to prove a point, which is: A stable, two-parent home, where children are taught right and wrong, can keep kids from a life of crime.

At first, the chimp drives Reagan to distraction. He throws cereal in the actor's face and steals jewelry. But in the end, Bonzo proves Reagan's point: He returns a stolen necklace because his "parents" taught him that stealing is wrong. Well, it's lighthearted fun -- but with a profound message: Families do shape character, and thus directly impact crime.

The empirical evidence supporting this view is overwhelming. For example, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Heath studied high-risk inner-city neighborhoods. They found that when kids grow up in safe, stable families, only about six percent of them will become delinquent.

Contrast that with kids raised in unstable, one-parent families: Ninety percent of them will become delinquent. Clearly, it's not poverty or race that is the chief cause crime; it's the lack of moral training during morally formative years.

The problem is aggravated when a parent goes to prison. The leading indicator of criminal behavior is having a parent locked up. One study found that eighty-four percent of boys who become serious juvenile offenders have a parent or a sibling in jail. If nothing is done, generation after generation will continue to go into the family business: Crime, Inc.

Dr. Jim Dobson and I were at the Vatican last fall to address a conference on the family. As I told delegates gathered there from around the world, crime is at root a moral problem. Conversion -- bringing kids to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ -- is the best way to turn wayward juveniles around.

Conversion is the key to keeping families together, as well. In areas of the world where churches most aggressively evangelize, family breakdown declines. The Church's most immediate challenge is to reach out with the gospel to kids and families at risk.

Precisely, of course, what Prison Fellowship is doing.

Faith-based efforts -- not government programs or bigger prisons -- can deal directly with the problem of family breakdown. President Bush recognized this during his Inaugural Address: "The proliferation of prisons," he said, "however necessary, is no substitute for hope and order in our souls."

Exactly right.

We must also work hard for measures that strengthen the family, and must fight the cultural forces that are corrupting it. When state legislators propose repealing easy divorce laws, get behind them. If your local video store carries trashy movies, organize pickets. If a soap company advertises on raunchy TV programs, boycott it -- and let the company know why you're washing your hands of its product. If gay groups donate Heather Has Two Mommies to your local school library, raise the roof until it's removed.

Most Americans don't know about the connection between family and crime -- which is why the Church must issue a wake-up call. Our children deserve better than to be surrendered to settings that prepare them for a life of crime. The only institution than can provide this crucial moral training is the fragile, but irreplaceable, family.

Just ask Bonzo.

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For further reference:

Fagan, Patrick. "The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community." BACKROUNDER #1026. The Heritage Foundation, 17 March 1995, p. 14.

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Copyright (c) 2001 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.