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Are Prisons Serving Their Purpose?
Collection StructureFiring Line broadcast records > Episode guide > Are Prisons Serving Their Purpose?
Item Title Are Prisons Serving Their Purpose?
Guest Colson, Charles W.
Host Buckley, William F., Jr. (1925-2008)
Date CreatedJuly 27, 1993
Description

We have met Mr. Colson here before, and, no, he has not changed his views about, as he puts it, the insanity of taking non-violent offenders and "separate[ing] them out from society, break[ing] them away from their families, stop[ping] them from being the breadwinners." But this show offers a particularly rich exposition, not least because Mr. Colson had just visited a prison in Brazil that truly rehabilitates, sending out people with a recidivism rate of about 4 per cent. The catch: it's explicitly Christian. CC: "Jack Eckerd, a wonderful philanthropist, spent half a million dollars to explore the feasibility of doing it here and concluded, because of the ACLU and separation of church and state, that we would never be able to do it." WFB: "You mean they might fall in love with God instead of with Mammon, and we wouldn't want to run that risk?" CC: "Well, we might offend someone by suggesting that there is such a thing as truth or Christian values that can transform a person's life. That would be offensive in today's tolerant society."

Language(s)
Country of Origin
Place RecordedNew York City, New York, United States
DimensionsDuration: 30 minutes
FormatText
Medium television programs
Aspect Ratio
4:3
Color
color
Soundtrack
sound
Hoover IDProgram S0976
Record Number80040.1235
NotesVideo not currently available for purchase.
RightsCopyright held by Stanford University. This copy is provided for educational and research purposes only. No publication, further reproduction, or reuse of copies, beyond fair use, may be made without the express written permission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives on behalf of Stanford University.
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