While taking a prisoner from a Guelph, Ontario, correctional center to be arraigned on charges of attempted armed robbery, police constable John Bolton noticed a cross around the neck of the convict. Knowing the man was not religious, he took a closer look. The prisoner attempted to conceal something protruding from the top of the cross. When questioned, he said it was a good luck charm designed to look like a spoon for sniffing cocaine. But Constable Bolton was sure it looked like a handcuff key. By experimentation he found that the protrusion would open most handcuffs. The discovery led to the exposure of an attempt by prisoners in the correctional center to make a number of these cross-keys.
There is a cross that sets men free, free from the bondage of the law, and that cross is the cross of Calvary. Unfortunately many are more concerned about freedom for the body than they are about freedom for the soul. Whether inside or outside prison, all men need the cross that sets us free.