{"id":4651,"date":"2010-06-16T14:02:36","date_gmt":"2010-06-16T18:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=4651"},"modified":"2010-06-16T14:18:18","modified_gmt":"2010-06-16T18:18:18","slug":"crime-and-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/crime-and-character\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime and Character"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chuck<\/a>
Chuck Colson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

6\/16\/2010 – Chuck Colson – <\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, I told you that crime rates are falling\u2014despite the fact we\u2019ve been enduring tough economic times for three years.<\/p>\n

Obviously, this flies in the face of the liberal belief that the cause of crime is poverty. And one liberal columnist, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, dared to look at the facts and ask the question, \u201cDid Liberals Get It Wrong on Crime?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cohen has this to say about falling crime rates: \u201cSurprisingly, this has happened in the teeth of the Great Recession, meaning that those disposed to attribute criminality to poverty,\u201d which was his view at one time, he says, \u201chave some strenuous rethinking to do.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be\u201d Cohen continues, \u201cas conservatives have insisted all along, that crime is committed by criminals. For liberals, this is bad news indeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not bad news. It\u2019s great news! When it comes to the cause of crime, liberal ideology cannot resist the overwhelming evidence.<\/p>\n

And I love Cohen\u2019s conclusion: \u201cThe latest crime statistics,\u201d he writes, \u201cstrongly suggest that bad times do not necessarily make bad people. Bad character does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exactly. Cohen nailed it. And as you have heard me say many times on BreakPoint, crime is the result of moral failure, of bad character, of wrong moral choices.<\/p>\n

But I wish Cohen had gone further. He could have asked what causes bad character, and how do we develop good character?<\/p>\n

How do we instill in people the virtues of self-restraint, prudence, charity, hard work? It\u2019s never too late for anyone, of course, but ideally, these virtues are inculcated at a young age. And, ideally, these values are modeled and habituated in the context of a loving, intact family, and among the intermediate structures of society\u2014church, civic groups, schools.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s tough to do in America today, where the traditional family is under assault, and where our schools fail to even discuss old fashioned concepts like virtue and character.<\/p>\n

Indeed, if Mr. Cohen wanted to see what\u2019s wrong with character formation in our schools, he could walk on over to the D.C. City Council, which decided to buy more expensive condoms to distribute to school kids. The plain old condoms weren\u2019t, well, popular or fancy enough. So they decided to hand out a more-expensive, better-known brand.<\/p>\n