c. 1997 Religion News Service
(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)
UNDATED _ As a professional fighter, Danny Croce broke all the rules.
Fighting out of Brockton, Mass., _ the hometown of boxing greats Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler _ Croce was known to lie about his ring record and fight under assumed names.
His personal life was equally reckless. A construction worker who earned his living by building skyscrapers, he nevertheless drank heavily, sometimes on his lunch breaks.
So it was in February 1984 that Croce, while driving drunk, struck and killed a police officer. After pleading guilty to vehicular homicide, he spent more than two years in prison.
While in prison, he underwent a dramatic conversion to Christianity. Now, more than 10 years after his release, Croce serves as a chaplain in the same institution in which he was incarcerated.
Croce’s journey to faith was the emotional centerpiece of a recent news conference announcing the results of a study linking inmate rehabilitation with religious commitment. The study, conducted by the National Institute for Healthcare Research (NIHR) for Prison Fellowship Ministries (PF), demonstrates that”prison Bible studies can reduce rearrests”of criminals after their release from prison.
In tracking 402 cases over a one-year postrelease period, the NIHR compared the rearrest, or recidivism, rates of 201 inmates who participated in PF-sponsored Bible studies and compared them with 201 inmates who did not participate in the Bible studies. Among the PF participants, the recidivism rates among those with high participation levels (attending 10 or more Bible studies a year) were compared with those with medium or low participation levels.
According to the NIHR,”The research found that 14 percent of the inmates in the high participation category were likely to be rearrested as compared with 44 percent of those who were non-PF participants. There was no significant difference found between the recidivism rates of the low and medium PF participants.” For those of us who minister behind prison walls, the study merely confirms what we already know: The gospel message has the power to transform lives. The more one is exposed to sound biblical teaching, the greater the likelihood of real transformation.
Certainly this was Danny Croce’s experience. During his stay in prison, he began to read a Bible loaned to him by another inmate. Though he enjoyed reading about the miracles of Jesus, it was Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that really grabbed his attention.
Burdened in his conscience by what he called”the lifestyle sins”addressed in the sermon, he went to the prison chaplain for advice. According to Croce, chaplain Bob Hanson was blunt.”You need to be saved,”Hanson said.
Croce subsequently accepted Jesus as his savior and began attending a PF-sponsored Bible study. After his release, he began attending a local church and worked with PF’s ministry to the families of inmates. He later earned a degree in Bible and Theology, and was ordained to the ministry.
As one might imagine, Croce’s perspective on the recidivism study is somewhat different from that of his fellow panel members at the news conference, who addressed the study’s significance in social policy terms. Croce spoke from the heart.”I can’t speak about policy,”he said.”All I know,”he continued, waving his Bible,”is that this can change a man’s life.” As a pastor who works with the imprisoned, I say”Amen.”
MJP END ATCHISON
