Fyodor Dostoevsky once purportedly wrote that the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. As many in the mainstream media have reminded us since his April 21 death at age 80, Charles W. Colson first did so in 1973, as President Nixon’s “hatchet man” sent to prison for seven months after his role in exposing Daniel Ellsberg. His subsequent contributions to improving the lives of prisoners—and to setting in motion entirely new prison paradigms—will endure for decades to come.
Given the broad tumult and unrest of Watergate-era American politics, we should not be surprised at how many scoffed at Colson’s claim, upon his release from the Alabama Maxwell prison, that he had undergone a profound religious conversion. Skeptics reserved judgment, even after Colson published in 1975 his highly transparent autobiography, Born Again, forthrightly describing White House life, his memorable willingness “to walk over my own grandmother if necessary” to Nixon’s cause—and, most importantly to Colson, the redemption he experienced in prison.
