Prison population. Atheists: 1%, Christians: 75%

[Joelcool7]

Galaki said:

source

It's suprising how many people say to me, "You're an Atheist? You must
have no conscience about commiting crime then." Nothing could be further
from the truth. In fact, if we examine the population of our prisons, we
see a very different picture:

In "The New Criminology", Max D. Schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two
generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without
religious training is about 1/10 of 1%. W. T. Root, professor of
psychology at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said
"Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character," adding
that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers are absent from
penitentiariers or nearly so.

During 10 years in Sing-Sing, those executed for murder were 65% Catholics,
26% Protestants, 6% Hebrew, 2% Pagan, and less than 1/3 of 1% non-religious.

Steiner and Swancara surveyed Canadian prisons and found 1,294 Catholics,
435 Anglicans, 241 Methodists, 135 Baptists, and 1 Unitarian.

Dr. Christian, Superintendant of the NY State Reformatories, checked
22,000 prison inmates and found only 4 college graduates. In "Who's Who"
91% were college graduates, and he commented that "intelligence and
knowledge produce right living" and that "crime is the offspring of
superstition and ignorance."

Surveyed Massachusetts reformatories found every inmate religious, carefully
herded by chaplins.

In Joliet, there were 2,888 Catholics, 1,020 Baptists, 617 Methodists and
0 non-religious.

Michigan had 82,000 Baptists and 83,000 Jews in their state population.
But in the prisons, there were 22 times as many Baptists as Jews, and 18 times
as many Methodists as Jews. In Sing-Sing, there were 1,553 total inmates with
855 of them Catholics (over half), 518 Protestants, 177 Jews and 8 non-
religious. There's a very interesting qualified statistic.

Steiner first surveyed 27 states, and found 19,400 Christians, 5,000 with
no preference, and only 3 Agnostics (one each in Connecticut, New Hampshire,
and Illinois). A later, more complete survey found 60,605 Christians, 5,000
Jews, 131 Pagans, 4,000 no preference, and only 3 Agnostics.

In one 29-state survey, Steiner found 15 unbelievers, Spirtualists,
Theosophists, Deists, Pantheists and 1 Agnostic among nearly 83,000 inmates.
Calling all 15 "anti-christians" made it one half person to each state.
Elmira reformatory overshadowed all, with nearly 31,000 inmates, including
15,694 Catholics (half), and 10,968 Protestants, 4,000 Jews, 325 refusing
to answer, and 0 unbelievers.

In the East, over 64% of inmates are Catholics. In the national prison
population they average 50%. A national census found Catholics 15%. They
count from the diaper up. Hardly 12% are old enough to commit a crime.
Half of these are women. That leaves an adult Catholic population of 6%
supplying 50% of the prison population.

Liverpool, England produces three percent as many young criminals as
Birmingham, a larger city, 28% coming from Catholic schools.

What does this tell you about parochial school systems or claims that religion
is the guardian of morals?

* Fifty-two percent of people belong to no church, yet live clean lives and *
* supply less than 1% of the total criminal population. So much for *
* religious indoctrination

Well since I am involved in Prison ministry myself I must say this is probably true but at the same time very slanted. I go into prisons and talk with inmates on a regular basis and yes the majority of them are Christian. But not when they committed their crimes and got incarcerated. Most of them converted shortly after being put in prison.

I've met all kinds of criminals who have repented of their sins asked Jesus for forgiveness and claim to now be Christian. Infact I'd say alot of people regrett their crimes and such and want repentance and to be forgiven of their sins. Not that I am in prison to convert people I go because many prisoners families and friends abandon them or are criminals themselves and not allowed to visit. But I must be honest more prisoners convert to Christianity then I have ever seen outside of prison.

Also considering the majority of America still considers themselves Christian, does mean that Christian's would be the majority of those convicted (If you go by population statistics alone) then factor in all these converts and your looking at a healthy majority. Also Christian's are human just like everyone else, even devout followers of the faith slip up and commit crimes from time to time its not like were perfect. Then add in the fact that a ton of Christian's call themselves Christian based on birth alone. I've met so many who say I am Christian and I'm like okay so Jesus said this about Peter and the guy will be like "Who's Peter" I then ask something like umm don't you read your Bible. So often the answer I get is "No I was born Christian , my parents were Christian so I'm Christian".

Then theirs all the people who believe in God but don't know what religion to identify with so they call themselves Christian.

Notice the bolded statement fifty two percent of people belong to no church. I'm guessing this stat is refering to Canada or the USA. Well I can say right now more then fifty two percent of the population considers themselves Christian so how does that work out? Tons of so called Christian's don't go to church, heck tons don't read their Bibles or even have a basic grasp of Christianity.

I'll prove my point "The majority of Americans (76%) identify themselves as Christians," so no shit theirs going to be a majority in prison. Add in converts and such and its a no brainer. This isn't because Athiests behave better or have more moral standards its simple logic. "A 2008 Gallup poll showed that a smaller 6% of the US population believed that no god or universal spirit exists".

So almost 13x as many Christians as Athiests. Now look at those prison stats again, they make alot more logical sense now don't they.

Then look at what Rath on others say as well, as that contributes. Athiests are often higher educated then Christians if you look at it by population levels. Many Christian's are black , latino , asian. But alot of Athiests are rich harvard educated people. Now of course their are many highly educated Christian's as well perhaps as many as their is athiests, however their are far more by maybe 99x as many poor uneducated Christian's as their is athiests.