Bible Study Cuts Prisoners’ Re-arrest Rate

[Condensed from The Washington Times, 12 April 1997.]                                                                          Vol. X, No. 5, May 1997

Researchers studied two groups of inmates in New York prisons: 201 who attended Bible study and 201 who did not. They were monitored after release, and guess what. Those who had studied the Bible (in Prison Fellowship programs) had a 14% arrest rate, while of those who had not attended Bible study 41% were re-arrested.

James Q. Wilson, a University of Southern California political scientist who studies crime, said, “Many people who study this, including myself, are not very optimistic that anything can be done with prisoners to change them.”

Prison Fellowship president Tom Pratt said the ministry will help with general and “vocational education, parenting skills, employment readiness, financial management, family responsibility, victim-offender reconciliation, and spiritual development.”

The group conducting the study said that prison efforts such as support education, vocational training, and counselling are good, but they have not proven to reduce re-arrest rates. “We would suggest that inmates leaving prison face so many obstacles that perhaps the spiritual side of prisoners is the missing element in bringing about rehabilitation,” said a summary of the research.

[Editorial Comment: Secular scholars can only rely upon secular correctives, but the Christian understands that the basic problem lies not in environment but in the soul. Environment (home life, nurturing parents, quality schools, work habit training, etc.) is important, but without faith in Jesus springing from study of the Word, environmental interventions are doomed to fail. Like non-prisoners, prisoners need to surrender to Jesus. All else is built on that fundamental change. TCP]