Winston Churchill once said, "The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country." The proliferation of prisoners and the prisons that warehouse them in the United States despite a decrease in crime rates is cause for Christian concern.
Who is profiting from what has become a prison-industrial complex? Why is the United States the only developed nation increasing its prison population while all others are taking aggressive means to decrease the number of prisoners they have and to find effective ways at reincorporating them into society? How do the church and individual Christians play into all this? What can we do?
In this two-session study, the author first examines the current state of U.S. prisons and lists the many things that are not going right. In the second session, he shares a number of positive ways Christians can get involved in changing the situation.