In this YouTube debate segment, host Dennis Prager challenges his guest (Speaker B) to provide statistical evidence on the religious practices of incarcerated violent offenders, asking whether the proportion of prisoners who attend church mirrors that of the general population (approximately 40%). Prager repeatedly redirects the conversation back to church attendance, rejecting arguments that focus on poverty, geography, or secular identity as the primary explanatory factor for crime rates. Speaker B counters by emphasizing poverty and regional differences, citing Andersonville, South Carolina, as a highly religious yet high‑crime area, and later suggests looking at Philadelphia. Prager insists that geography is irrelevant to his criterion and that the only meaningful metric is the rate of church attendance among criminals versus non‑criminals. The exchange highlights a semantic dispute over what data matters, with Prager demanding concrete church‑attendance statistics for prisoners and dismissing broader socioeconomic explanations. The segment ends with a promotional plug for PragerU/PragerUtopia.
Chapters
Hi, this is Dennis Prager, and this is what you missed yesterday on the show. 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, Do you believe that 40% of the murderers, rapists, burglars, and armed robbers went to church regularly before they went to prison?
Um, sure. I mean, that's not a big thing. We're talking about poverty here, Dennis. I mean— Wait, wait, wait. You—
wait, you— wait. But you're now changing the subject. I'm happy to talk poverty. You said to me that religion doesn't matter because Andersonville, South Carolina, is very religious and has a very high crime rate. So I'm telling you that the way— so you don't change the subject to poverty. I'll talk poverty, but you've got to keep it what you raised. I'm answering your question. 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.
Right. So how many— yeah, I agree. So the biggest prison population, of course, is Christians, right?
No, no, no, secularists, not atheists. I don't care if people— people believing in God is a meaningless phrase. Are they Christians? I asked you, were they practicing Christians? Whether somebody calls himself Christian or anything else is of no, of no relevance to me. If— do you believe that the same percentage of criminals that go, go to church as non-criminals that go to church. Do you believe that 40% of the rapists in prison went to church that week, the week they raped?
I don't know, Dennis. You don't know?
If you had to bet, if you had to bet—
It's a very semantic thing. It's not semantic. It's— what does that mean, semantic? It's the only statistic that matters. So let's listen to this. So let's change it from Anderson. Let's go to Philadelphia, right?
No, I don't care about— okay, all right. Okay, look, I don't know what to do. I'm very glad you called, but I don't know. I told you geography doesn't matter to me. Church attendance versus non-church attendance is my criterion, not where they live. Where they live is irrelevant. If you're a Prager Utopia member, you can listen to the complete segment along with every show every day and commercial-free. You'll never miss another show. Go to pragerutopia.com.
