One morning recently, a large man with a friendly smile brought his beige Mercury coupe to a stop at the front entrance of the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Ga. He jumped out, locked the car and gave the keys to a guard. Then he signed his name in the visitors' book (under "purpose of visit." he wrote "educational") and rushed down a prison corridor to a classroom in which some 35 inmates were waiting.
As he entered the room, he took off his coat and headed for the lectern, where he apologized for being ten...