How Did This Prison Lead Its Inmates to God?

By Rod Anderson, CP Cartoonist Thursday, September 25, 2014

The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote that "the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." He spoke from experience, having spent four years in Siberia after having his death sentence commuted.

Unfortunately, many Americans can also speak from experience on this score. As regular BreakPoint listeners know, many of our prisons are overcrowded and dangerous places where men and women are kept in conditions that should shock our consciences.

Let me be clear: I'm not laying this at the feet of our nation's corrections officials. If our prisons speak poorly of the state of our civilization, it's largely because we incarcerate far too many people for low-level offenses and care too little about what happens to them after we've locked them up.

But there are many people who, despite the public's lack of concern, are making a difference in the lives of those entrusted to their care. One of them sits on Prison Fellowship's board of directors: Burl Cain, the warden of Louisiana's Angola Prison.