Dennis Prager Show - Debate: Is Poverty Linked to Crime?
Aired: 2019-10-09
Duration: 02:44


=== Belief in Prison (02:23) ===

[00:00:00]  Hi, this is Dennis Prager, and this is what you missed yesterday on the show.
[00:00:04]  So are you saying you believe that people in prison for violent crime, and I mean violence against property like burglary, just as well as violence against body, do you believe that if 40% of Americans outside of prison go to church every Sunday,
[00:00:25]  do you believe that 40% of the murderers, rapists, Burglars and armed robbers went to church regularly before they went to prison.
[00:00:37]  Sure.
[00:00:38]  I mean, that's not a big thing.
[00:00:41]  We're talking about poverty here, Dennis.
[00:00:45]  Wait, but you're now changing the subject.
[00:00:47]  I'm happy to talk poverty.
[00:00:48]  You said to me that religion doesn't matter because Andersonville, South Carolina is very religious and has a very high crime rate.
[00:00:57]  So I'm telling you that the way...
[00:00:59]  So you don't change the subject to poverty.
[00:01:01]  I'll talk poverty, but you've got to keep it...
[00:01:04]  What you raised.
[00:01:05]  I'm answering your question.
[00:01:07]  The only way to determine whether religion in America is more likely to make you less likely a criminal is to look at the criminal population in prison.
[00:01:18]  Right.
[00:01:19]  So how many...
[00:01:20]  Yeah, I agree.
[00:01:22]  So the biggest prison population, of course, is Christians, right?
[00:01:26]  No.
[00:01:28]  No?
[00:01:28]  No.
[00:01:31]  Secularists, not atheists.
[00:01:32]  I don't care if people...
[00:01:34]  Believing in God is a meaningless phrase.
[00:01:37]  Are they Christians?
[00:01:38]  I asked you, were they practicing Christians?
[00:01:40]  Whether somebody calls himself Christian or anything else is of no relevance to me.
[00:01:46]  Do you believe that the same percentage of criminals that go to church as non-criminals that go to church?
[00:01:54]  Do you believe that?
[00:01:55]  40% of the rapists in prison went to church that week, the week they raped?
[00:02:01]  I don't know, Dennis.
[00:02:02]  You don't know.
[00:02:03]  If you had to bet, if you had to bet...
[00:02:05]  It's a very semantic thing.
[00:02:07]  It's not semantic.

=== Church Attendance Matters (00:36) ===

[00:02:08]  What does that mean, semantic?
[00:02:10]  It's the only statistic that matters.
[00:02:13]  So let's listen to that.
[00:02:15]  So let's change it from Anderson.
[00:02:16]  Let's go to Philadelphia, right?
[00:02:18]  No!
[00:02:18]  I don't care about...
[00:02:20]  Okay, all right.
[00:02:21]  Okay, look.
[00:02:22]  I don't know what to do.
[00:02:23]  I'm very glad you called, but I don't know...
[00:02:25]  I told you geography doesn't matter to me.
[00:02:29]  Church attendance versus non-church attendance is my criterion.
[00:02:33]  Not where they live.
[00:02:34]  Where they live is irrelevant.
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