Church & Jail

A frequent question to Roman Catholic churchmen is: why so great a proportion of Catholics in prison populations? In last week's issue of The Commonweal, urbane Catholic weekly, was a reply by Father John P. McCaffrey, Roman Catholic chap lain at Sing Sing. Chief point: prison populations mirror the localities upon which they draw. Father McCaffrey demonstrates by a section in Massachusetts, as follows:

Religion Reformatory Population General Population Catholic 66.3% 66.4% Protestant 28.6 25.6 Jewish 3.9 6.7 Others 1.2 1.7

A survey of Missouri and Michigan State Prisons showed the Catholic percentage about 13% or 14%. A Tennessee penitentiary in the mountains had no Catholics at all several years ago, which corresponds roughly with the district it serves. In Sing Sing this year the percentage of Catholics is 50%. an increase of 10% over last year, with 855 Catholics, 518 Protestants, 177 Jews, 20 Christian Scientists, 8 agnostics, 2 Mohammedans, 1 Buddhist. Chaplain McCaffrey thinks that most men in prison gave up practicing their faith before they were sentenced. Of people who blame crime on environment, heredity, and physical factors he says : "They are willing to put the responsibility . . . anywhere and everywhere except on the shoulders of the men who break the laws, and that is where it belongs. . . . It is not the Church that has failed, but the man who did the crime." Other reasons adduced by Chaplain McCaffrey for Catholics being in prison: many are of races "addicted to the use of knife and pistol"; many are from the slums. Also, "a Catholic has more temptations because of the strict moral code that his church holds him to, and especially in our complicated social structure where his economic conditions throw him into conflict with the laws protecting property ... 70% of the men in Sing Sing are here because of ... stealing in its various forms."

Many a Catholic, says Father McCaffrey, is ignorant as to the church's teaching on the sacrament of Penance, which requires genuine sorrow rooted in an "intellectual appreciation" of sin and a firm purpose of amendment as well as simple confession. Many a non-Catholic misunderstands Penance, too; Catholics go to prison because they believe confession excuses their crimes and ends the matter. Not cited in Father McCaffrey's article is the fact that Catholics in prison are more publicized than non-Catholics because their priests do something about them. Nobody hears about the religious views of a Methodist criminal. But a Catholic makes copy, as when Francis ("Two-Gun") Crowley, killer of Patrolman Frederick Hirsch, refused meat on the Friday before his execution (TIME, Feb. 1).

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