Those men, all men and women in prison, KNOW: you do the crime, you do the time. They were all taught right from wrong and have the brains and backbone to take the straight and narrow.
That they stray from God's path is something THEY have to reconcile with their Maker, when the time of their death finally arrives. They understand the arithmetic and why they CHOOSE the path they take is a subject for the shrinks, sociologists and men-of-the-cloth.
It's still my contention that the lack of dads in their lives has a big part to do with their failures. They know the odds too. It's THEIR life, their soul. May God give them the grace to walk the straight and narrow--BEFORE they have to do so from prison experience.
WHO in his right mind would want to hire an ex-felon?
In the neighborhood we once lived in, a 'family' moved in down the street, from California. Mother, shack-up boyfriend, and a boy, not the son of the boyfriend. The boy was the same age as my daughter, 11-12, and they went to the same school together. I watched this child grow up and he eventually wound up in prison. He was 'taught' to steal by his mother, who was a druggie and a thief herself. I was appalled one day when she was actually bragging about how much stuff they had shoplifted, and needless to say we never had much to do with them after that.
Another case, when I was a kid in the 60's, age 10-11 or so, I went to school in a small town where the school was grades 1 thru 12, all in the same building.
There was a family whose father was the coach, and the mother was a HS math teacher at this school. They had two children in the school themselves, juvenile and teen. Fine, upstanding members of society, or so we all thought.
Then one Monday morning they did not show up for class, none of them.
Over the weekend they had all been arrested in a nearby (60 miles) city, at a store that was a precursor to what today would be a Sam's or Costco. They were arrested for shoplifting, and we never saw any of them again, or at least I didn't, being kid, but I'm sure they had to have their stuff moved from their home by someone. This was a very small rural town.
Now in both of these stories both 'families' were white. One uneducated and barely making it day to day, the other both college educated and working full time. The results were the same.
It shows me that 'poverty' has little to do with crime. It shows me that 'education level' has little to do with crime. It shows me that 'familial status' has little to do with crime. It shows me that 'race' has little to do with crime. It shows me that a person that is never instructed in the ways of God and His Son, Jesus Christ is truly 'lost' to Satan.......................