Justice That Restores

by Charles W. Colson

Colson contends that a system of true justice can be built only if it is based on the foundation of a sound worldview. What we believe as individuals about the value of life, the essence of human nature, and the possibility of redemption is the critical issue that determines an effective approach to justice and reform.

Since his incarceration in the aftermath of Watergate, Chuck Colson has lived and worked for a great cause: to transform the hearts and minds of prisoners and their families. Through the course of his work over twenty-five years, he has also prophetically critiqued the failures of the criminal justice system and the moral state of our culture, which, he argues, has caused crime to surge.

In this readable and challenging work, Colson combines his personal experience, his extensive study of the justice system and efforts at prison reform, and his encounters with prisoners themselves. Justice That Restores is insightful and prophetic, offering compelling answers to the failures of America's system of justice.

This country is at a crossroads, he argues, and needs a whole new philosophy of criminal justice. Both conservatives and liberals have produced expensive prisons and justice systems that miss the mark. We are spending more on building prisons than on schools; we have the second largest incarceration rate per capita in the world; inequities and injustices in the system abound. America needs to do something. NOW. What is the Answer?

The answer is found in the lives of Leon and Danny and Don, whose stories are told here, as well as in the experiences Colson and his colleagues have had in thousands of prisons. The answer lies fundamentally deep down inside the values that our culture embraces. We'll never solve the crime problem, Colson argues, until we solve the moral issues that afflict our families and our society.

Genres: Nonfiction, Social Issues, Cultural

175 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2002

About the author

Almost 40 years ago, Charles W. Colson was not thinking about reaching out to prison inmates or reforming the U.S. penal system. In fact, this aide to President Richard Nixon was "incapable of humanitarian thought," according to the media of the mid-1970s. Colson was known as the White House "hatchet man," a man feared by even the most powerful politicos during his four years of service to Nixon.

When news of Colson's conversion to Christianity leaked to the press in 1973, The Boston Globe reported, "If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everybody." Colson would agree.

In 1974 Colson entered a plea of guilty to Watergate-related charges; although not implicated in the Watergate burglary, he voluntarily pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the Daniel Ellsberg Case. He entered Alabama's Maxwell Prison in 1974 as a new Christian and as the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges. He served seven months of a one- to three-year sentence.

After leaving prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976, which has since become the world's largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. Today, Colson remains a member of the board of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

A sought-after speaker, Colson has written more than 30 books, which collectively have sold more than 5 million copies. His autobiographical book, Born Again, was one of the nation's best-selling books of all genres in 1976. Another bestseller, co-authored by Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live, is considered one of the most important books written on the subject of Christian worldview. His most recent book, The Faith, is a powerful appeal to the Church to re-embrace the foundational truths of Christianity.

In 1991 Colson launched BreakPoint, a unique radio commentary that provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. BreakPoint is currently aired weekdays to more than 1,300 outlets nationwide that reach and estimated 2 million listeners.

Today Colson is focused full time on developing other Christian leaders who can influence the culture and their communities through their faith. The capstone of this effort is The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, an online research and training center launched in 2009 for the promotion of Christian worldview teaching. In addition to a vast library of worldview materials, the Colson Center provides online courses and serves as a catalyst for a growing movement of Christian organizations dedicated to impacting the culture. The Colson Center website also hosts Colson's popular weekly Two-Minute Warning video commentary aimed at engaging a younger generation with a biblical perspective on cultural issues.

In 2009, Colson was a principal writer of the Manhattan Declaration, which calls on Christians to defend the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage and religious freedom. Nearly half a million people have signed the Manhattan Declaration. Collaborating with other Christian ministries, BreakPoint aims to launch other ecumenical grassroots movements around moral and ethical issues of great concern.

In recognition of his work, Colson received the prestigious Templeton Prize for progress in religion in 1993, donating the $1 million prize to Prison Fellowship. Colson's other awards have included the Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation's second-highest civilian honor (2008); the Humanitarian Award from Dominos Pizza Corporation (1991); The Others Award from The Salvation Army (1990); the Outstanding Young Man of Boston from the Boston Chamber of Commerce (1960); and several honorary doctorates from various colleges and universities (1982-2000).

Reviews

[Brett Powers · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book has surprisingly legitimate sources for data, but uses the data incorrectly to make the points Colson is determined to make.

One example would be when he says crime spiked in the 1920's (true) and church attendance declined at the same time (true) then combines these two data points to say the reason crime spiked was because fewer people went to church. There is no mention of Prohibition and high levels of income inequality, which the majority of scholars would say had a great deal to do with this spike in crime. Colson also goes on to say crime went down in the 1930's solely because the Great Depression brought families together in their time of need, and completely ignores the ending of Prohibition AND jobs created by FDR's New Deal policies, which helped people financially and turned many away from crimes of financial necessity and the temptations of bootlegging. The book is full of the logical fallacy that correlation implies causation, which is a common manipulation of data Colson employs throughout the breadth of ghostwritten books and articles bearing his name.

This book contains many stories on the horrible plight of urban areas since the 1960's, which he blames on secularism and drugs, but nary a mention of the increasing income inequality, decades of tax cuts for top incomes, budget cuts for social programs, decreasing investment in public infrastructure, and drug war policies since that time which have a huge hand in filling U.S. prisons. These issues had actual academic studies look at them and the results indicate these things had much to do with urban decay.

Norway is negatively illustrated as having a clinically sterile approach to justice because of the nation's secular worldview, but statistics comparing the two nations' prison systems are absent in this part of the book. While Norway is one of the most secular nations in the world, it imprisons 71 out of 100,000 citizens compared to 743 out of 100,000 in the U.S., has 1/8th of the U.S. murder rate per capita, and a recidivism rate of 20% compared to the U.S. rate at around 70%. These statistics are not mentioned while comparing Norway's prisons to U.S. prisons because they do not fit with Colson's narrative of secularism being a major cause of crime. Instead of statistics, he relates a singular tale of one Christian prison worker he supposedly met in Norway who took a prisoner out to a movie only to get raped and murdered.

The concept of restorative justice, meaning the criminal pays reparations to victims, fails to mention in the book that most crimes in the U.S. are so called "victimless crimes." It leaves me wondering who all the drug users and other victimless criminals end up paying to? My guess would be the government or the Corrections Corporation of America, a for profit prison corporation Colson worked very closely with and probably lobbies for, but I can only guess because he is coy with the details.

There are many criticisms I have of Colson's ideas and manipulations of data, but I will agree with him that community involvement in reintegrating prisoners into society is a good idea, though I disagree a religious conversion is necessary in the process. Job programs and social networking are very effective and do not require a biblical conversion. Another thing I agree with is the dearth of ethics, values, and moral training U.S. citizens are exposed to in this country compared to psychologically manipulative adverts for products, for example. Moral education can be integrated into education and advertising aimed at children could be regulated, but is unlikely to happen in an age of product placement in classrooms and corporate lawyers lobbying efforts in congress deregulating everything. Again, I disagree a biblical worldview is the only one capable of producing virtuous people, but am not opposed to it being one of many perspectives introduced in ethics classrooms.

There is far more negative criticism I could level at this book, but have better things to do today. What I think the real problem with this book is that Colson worked as a public relations figure and lobbyist for particular corporations and interest groups he had been working for since his post Watergate conversion to Christianity. He was an obviously intelligent man, but a good rule of thumb for knowing when a smart man is misleading would be to count the logical errors in their arguments; an obscenely high number of errors indicates this person is intentionally trying to manipulate their audience.

[Janelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Colson jumped to way too many conclusions and used extremely biased studies as references. Correlation does not equal causation.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of (a) the state of law and order in the U.S., (b) philosophy of crime and victims, and (c) a necessary return to a consistent moral base. Essentially, if you try to blend too many concepts and perspectives, you will naturally exclude some just to stay sane and retain hope of the future. Really moving stories about visiting prisons - from despair and darkness to hope and light.

[Laurie Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Colson uses his insider's view of prison to explain the best path forward to prison reform, to educate and restore criminals. He also shares how this vision has effectively worked when put in place at a few prisons.

[Michael Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and needed book in the discussion of justice and restoration in our day. Colson does a good job at reviewing different ideas and history about justice and punishment, and then gives a path to bring reformation and restoration which centers on the gospel and biblical truth. There is much application for communities, families, the church and the prison system throughout the book.

[Brent Barnard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Colson, but this book is specifically written on prison reform. I'm interested in that too, but it's not as broadly applicable as most of other books. I checked it out from the library, read half, and finally returned it (after a year) when I realized I was never going to make it through.

[Whitney Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book that I have read by this author and I will read more of his books, this book was well written and did a great job in telling about the importance of Restorative Justice and Prison Ministry in the prison systems. This is definitely a book that I want to get for my own collection and definitely a book that I would recommend to people. :)

[Sarah Frobisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

If only America could embrace restorative justice....what a change it would bring.

[Tim Chavel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book! A new way to look at the prison system.

[Joe Boudreault · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Colson was noted for his brief career as a top advisor to President Richard Nixon in the early 1970s until he pleaded guilty to criminal behavior in the Watergate scandal. Colson served 7 months in prison, but just prior to this, he converted to Christianity, as told by him in his own words with the book Born Again. Colson is a university educated man with degrees in law, and it shows in most of his writings. After prison, Colson began working seriously with reform in the American justice system, and founded the worldwide Prison Fellowship Ministries, the world's largest of its kind. He is still at it, preaching and teaching to inmates everywhere and advocating a drastically different and more effective format of dealing with the results of crime, punishment and rehabilitation.

Colson proposes to have prisons everywhere modeled on the Christian world view, instead of the usual natural or utopian world view. His claims bear impressive evidence that this viewpoint (of Christian redemption and transformation) is the only true way to bring down crime and deal with criminals. It is hard to disagree with what he says here, because statistics are overwhelmingly on his side. His bold doctrine that racism, poverty, or overcrowding are not responsible for crime rates, but that it arises with the problem of sin and rebellion in the individual are points that are hard to refute. I was struck by his clarity and persuasiveness in these matters, and I believe he is one of the few who are on the right track toward better future criminology and treatment of crime everywhere. Now, if only the right authorities would pay more attention.