A profile of the Rev. George Webber of the New York Theological Seminary that appeared in the New Yorker, July 10, 1995:

Webber graduated from Harvard in 1942 with a degree in history; he has been at the seminary since 1969 and established the prison program. He finds in the Bible "a radical, countercultural Jesus who teaches us to expose the injustices of society and deal with society's victims." By Webber's lights, those victims include violent criminals. "The guys take responsibility for what they did," he explains. "But they can say, 'Look, I messed up, I've done awful things, I've committed murder, I deserve punishment, yet at the same time I was victimized by a vicious, corrupt, awful society that never gave me a chance.' Rarely do I have anybody who wasn't treated like s*** since he was a baby." Of the Sing Sing residents he declares, "They're human beings, not criminals," although whatever else they may be, they certainly are criminals. "Take Don Mason," he says of one of his graduates. "In a fit of rage, he kills his wife. He's not a murderer, damn it all! He committed a murder."

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