Limitless Perspective

The late Charles Colson spent time in the White House as a senior presidential aide and then did time in jail as a “Watergate” conspirator. After his release from prison, Mr. Colson was actively engaged in a ministry to the imprisoned. In that capacity, he tells of a visit to an experimental prison in Brazil called “Humanita.” Said Colson, in his book entitled, “Making the World Safe For Religion”… When I visited Humanita, I found the inmates smiling. Wherever I walked, I saw men at peace. I saw clean living quarters. I saw people working industriously.

The walls were decorated with Biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs. Humanita has an astonishing record. Its recidivism rate is only four percent compared to seventy-five percent in the rest of Brazil, and the United States. How is all this possible?

I saw the answer when my guide escorted me to the notorious punishment cell, once used for torture. He told me that it holds only a single inmate.…