Force For Reform

BY: Rod McClendon

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Although Christians are divided on the death penalty, they can take credit for making other criminal punishments more humane and prisons more livable.



Historically, Christianity has been a driving force for reform, says Thomas Beckner, a former prison chaplain and director of the Center for Justice and Urban Leadership at Taylor University in Fort Wayne, Ind.



"Prison sentences as a standard means of punishment appeared only after a point in history when the worth of the individual had become more highly regarded," Beckner said. "In fact, it was the introduction of Christianity with its call for drastic change in social conditions and attitudes which really ushered in the concept of prisons."



Here's a timeline based on Beckner's research:


  • Reign of Constantine, 306-337. Church courts established to administer justice to clergy, monks and clerics. But rather than the normal execution or physical maiming, it was decided that these intellectuals should be punished but not wasted. By the 12th century, those tried by church court received less severe penalties than those tried in other courts. Later, the same benefit was extended to all who could read.

  • Middle Ages. Imprisonment for criminal activity becomes the norm. Local jails emerge as "squalid places where men, women and children were confined together with no regard for the nature of their offenses."

  • 1557. In response to harsh conditions and the prevalence of corporal punishments and executions, churchmen advocated "humanitarian alternatives" such as the workhouse, temporary housing for vagrants, debtors and other petty offenders. The first such workhouse opened in Scotland in 1557. Then the idea was copied throughout Europe.

  • 1600s. A strict criminal code was enforced in Colonial America, drawing upon physical punishment as practiced in Europe. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a 1641 code mandated the death penalty for 12 offenses. Stocks and pillories were used to inflict pain and humiliation.

    Continued on page 2: »

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