You can learn a lot about the character of a country by its jails. Alexander McLean tells of the subhuman treatment he witnessed in African prisons—conditions so brutal that he founded a distance-learning organization that empowers prisoners to fight for their own rights. But the larger question he asks relates not just to Africa: "If as a society we say that someone who has stolen will always be a thief, what skills and gifts and talents do we miss out on?"
Related tags:
