St. Paris the Repentant, Maybe

June 26, 2007 — -- The frenzy of photographers' flashbulbs surrounding Paris Hilton as she left the Los Angeles County Jail early this morning isn't exactly the flash of light Saul of Tarsus saw on the road to Damascus, but the errant heiress swears she has found God.

In her three-week confinement, Hilton, 26, gave several telephone interviews from the Los Angeles County Jail, in which she expressed a new found spirituality and promised to dedicate her life to a number of do-gooder causes, among them a halfway house for released inmates, a playground for sick children and a multiple sclerosis charity.

"God has given me this new chance," she told ABC News' Barbara Walters."My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail," she said. "God has released me."

From sex tapes to drunk driving arrests, the world has watched Hilton continuously debase herself. All eyes are again on America's favorite celebutante, but this time people are watching to see if she will keep her word and really turn over a new leaf.

Hilton surely isn't the first person to find God in prison. In 1974 Charles Colson, aide to Richard Nixon and an architect of the Watergate break-in, spent seven months in jail and came out born again enough to found Prison Fellowship, a Christian group that ministers to prisoners.

"I've worked with, quite literally, thousands of men and women in hundreds of prisons all over the world and I have seen countless conversions. Prison is a tough environment with few distractions, there is ample time to take a hard look at yourself," said Colson.

Colson said he wanted to believe that Hilton would leave behind her old life of hard partying and scandal making for the straight and narrow.

"I'm not a cynic, I start wanting to believe. If this were true with her, I'd be thrilled to death," he said.

Colson said the 23 days that Hilton has spent in jail for violating her parole and drinking and driving with a suspended license was long enough for him to believe that her commitment to change was authentic.

"Twenty-three days is a pretty long time for someone not used to it. I found my first 23 days pretty sobering. I had gone from the White House to prison," he said.

Last week, Hilton told the E! network's Ryan Seacrest that she wanted to open a "transitional home" to help released prisoners acclimate to society.

"These women," she said of her fellow inmates, "just keep coming back because they have no place to go."

If Hilton's goal is to help former inmates, she might want to ask advice from Paul Wright, editor of the prisoners' rights publication Prison Legal News and a convicted murderer.

Like Hilton, Wright said many prisoners don't have a network to support them after getting out of jail. The impetus behind her idea to help people might also be the cause for her own salvation.

"Paris Hilton doesn't meet the average statistical profile of an inmate -- drug problem, mental illness, functional illiteracy, poverty," Wright said. "It sounds like Paris probably has some issues with substance abuse and if going to jail acts as a wake-up call to get off drugs and booze then who is to say it's not a conversion."

"What really separates Paris from 65 percent of the people released on the same day she's released is that she has a home to go to and knows where her next meal will come from. … Most people released, don't have a home, don't have jobs. Most working class people go to jail for 23 days and if they had a job when they went in, they won't have one when they get out. Though, I still haven't figured out what Paris does for a living, this is stuff she doesn't have to deal with," Wright said.

Only time will tell just how contrite Hilton really is, and just how earnest she is about straightening herself out.

"Most inmates when coming out of jail do well for a while and function OK," said Steven Norton, a criminal psychology expert. "The majority that walk out don't start screwing up right away, there is usually about a six-month widow."

"If she stays out of trouble and away from substance abuse and if she follows her probation guidelines that will tell us whether she has learned her lesson," he said.