by Lisa Conyers and Philip D. Harvey

About the authors: Lisa Conyers is a writer and researcher in Mount Vernon, Washington. Philip D. Harvey is a public policy researcher and writer in Washington, D.C.

Charles W. Colson, the convicted Watergate felon, went on after prison to found a volunteer program for reforming prisoners [Prison Fellowship]. As part of that program, he advocated the broader use of religious values to help break “America’s seemingly indomitable cycle of crime.”

Religion and Crime

In a talk before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Colson chided the media for giving “short shrift” to religious values, “including the acknowledgment of the relevance of morality in society.”

But how relevant is religion to morality? Does religion make a person more ethical? Can a...