The Question Is: What Is Just?

By Chuck Colson|Published Date: June 29, 2009


Do prisons deter? Do they rehabilitate? Or are offenders punished because they deserve it?

My first day in prison remains vivid in my memory, particularly the moment I was ushered into the office of my case-worker, the official who had my life in his hands. If this bureaucrat was intimidated to be facing the former special counsel to the president of the United States, he didn’t show it.

“All right Colson,” he said, leaning back in his government-issue swivel chair. “Let me tell you what this prison is about.” Then he sharply slapped the back of his left hand with his right hand. “That’s it,” he said with a toothy grin. “Punishment.”

I didn’t need to be treated as a child I wanted to tell him (but didn’t). Yet over the years, I’ve come to realize that in his simple way he expressed a profound — but often ignored — truth. And it is one that is central to the renewed debate over capital punishment.

Over these 25 years of prison ministry I’ve encountered every theory justifying prisons and punishment and frequently lectured on the subject. (My recent London lectures will be published in book form this fall.) Most arguments center on what works. Law-and-order conservatives, (of which I was one) contend prisons deter; liberals argue they rehabilitate. Both have contributed to the huge prison-building boom, the population doubling in the last 10 years.

But these arguments are utilitarian, that is, what best serves the social goals of society. My caseworker was making a different point: that is, an offender is punished because he deserves it. This is what C. S. Lewis, in his brilliant essay The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment, called “just deserts.”

To justify punishment by whether it “deters or cures” is the triumph of sociology over justice. “Why in heaven’s name am I to be sacrificed to the good of society in this way? Unless, of course, I deserve it,” Lewis asked, referring to the deterrent theory. He concluded, “Take away desert and the whole morality of punishment disappears.” Lewis and my caseworker cut to the heart of the matter, and their point bears directly on the issue of capital punishment.

For most of my life, both as a Christian and before, I opposed the death penalty. I worried about innocent defendants being found guilty. (As a lawyer I knew that happened.) But most importantly, I could find no deterrent. During a visit to death row in Illinois in the mid-eighties I began to have doubts about my position. John Wayne Gacy, convicted of the brutal murders of 33 men and boys, asked to see me. He spent most of our one-hour conversation insisting on his innocence, angry at the state for how he was being treated. I was struck by his unrepentant arrogance. I was struck also by how pitifully inadequate a prison sentence seemed as a punishment for such horrid crimes. Hardly heavy enough to balance Lady Justice’s scales. Lewis’s questions hounded me: What is the “just desert ” for such heinous crimes? In time these questions — and the realization that I had been influenced by utilitarian arguments — caused me to my change my stand on capital punishment.

There are certain cases where a crime is so heinous that in order to meet the demands of justice, more than prison is required. Just desert demands the life be taken. But if society is to invoke the ultimate sanction, it must never do so lightly (and never gleefully; I am absolutely appalled at the bloodthirsty demonstrations which attend some celebrated executions). And capital punishment should be used only when there is no doubt of the defendant’s guilt (the biblical test is severe, see Deut.17:6,7), which is why I applaud the courage of public officials like Illinois Governor George Ryan, who suspended capital punishment after discovering his state’s dismal record on sentencing innocent defendants to death.

The current debate should cause Christians to reexamine their positions, to be sure they’re not influenced by what is socially useful or politically popular, but rather by what is just. And as society wrestles with this agonizing question, we need to be ready to contend for a biblically informed view, one which safeguards the innocent but recognizes there are some cases so egregious that the death penalty is the only way to balance the scales. Lewis and my caseworker had it right: At the root of justice is not sociology or therapy but — simply put — “just deserts.”