Are Prisons the Biblical Way to Deal With Crime? - Clayton D Steep - June-July 1980

Clayton D Steep

Is imprisonment God's way of dealing-with the crime problem? Why is the prison system in such chaos and crime so widespread? Where did the idea of keeping people in prison come from in the first place? You may be surprised at the answers. Prisons - we like to label them correctional institutions - are increasingly hotbeds of racial strife, homosexual, rape, drug trafficking and violence. One prison official expressed it this way: "These aren't ordinary people .... There are people in here who like to see blood - they like to hurt people. They practically foam at the mouth when they see blood." Persons guilty of less serious offenses are frequently thrown in with hardened criminals, where they themselves become hardened criminals. Penal institutions have become schools for perfecting the "art" of crime. Many consider getting caught as merely an occupational hazard. A prison psychiatrist in France complained: "When I talk with them they tell me: 'Let's not kid around. - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library