prison_study_63003

Posted: 6/27/03

Study says prison ministry effective

WASHINGTON (RNS)--A study of the effectiveness of a key faith-based prisoner rehabilitation program has found graduates of the program are less likely to return to a life of crime.

The study was released June 18 after leaders of Prison Fellowship, the ministry founded by ex-convict and Nixon aide Chuck Colson, met with President Bush and White House officials to discuss the program's impact on ex-prisoners.

The study, conducted by Byron Johnson of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society, found graduates of Prison Fellowship's program are less likely than non-graduates to return to a life of crime. The program provides spiritual counseling, job training and mentoring to prisoners nearing the end of their sentences.

image_pdfimage_print

Posted: 6/27/03

Study says prison ministry effective

WASHINGTON (RNS)–A study of the effectiveness of a key faith-based prisoner rehabilitation program has found graduates of the program are less likely to return to a life of crime.

The study was released June 18 after leaders of Prison Fellowship, the ministry founded by ex-convict and Nixon aide Chuck Colson, met with President Bush and White House officials to discuss the program's impact on ex-prisoners.

The study, conducted by Byron Johnson of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society, found graduates of Prison Fellowship's program are less likely than non-graduates to return to a life of crime. The program provides spiritual counseling, job training and mentoring to prisoners nearing the end of their sentences.

Of the 177 ex-prisoners who participated in the study, the 75 who underwent biblical education and counseling were half as likely to be reincarcerated, Johnson said.

Church-state separationist groups who say the biblically based program amounts to a violation of the Constitution have called the study baseless, arguing it should have compared graduates of the program to ex-prisoners who received secular counseling.

“This is junk science driven by right-wing ideology,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

The Washington-based watchdog group has filed suit against the Prison Fellowship program in Iowa, saying the prison there gives special privileges to program participants and uses state funding for a program whose goal is completely religious.

“Our primary concern is that it's not right to have government funds to pay for people's religious conversions,” Lynn said.

The Prison Fellowship program, titled the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, was first introduced in a Texas state prison in 1997 and now has similar programs in Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota.

Speaking in front of the White House after the meeting, Colson expressed his gratitude to Bush for introducing the program in Texas six years ago when he was governor.

“I didn't think he'd be willing to fight it through, all the church-state issues,” Colson said. “This is a tremendous vindication for the president.”

Colson and other advocates of faith-based prison rehabilitation programs said they were pleased Bush expressed interest in expanding the InnerChange Freedom Initiative to federal prisons.

“The president feels an urgency as part of his compassion agenda to reach out to these communities,” said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

At a federal level, however, the program would have to accommodate people of all faiths and no faiths rather than being explicitly Christian, Towey said, noting that Jewish and Muslim counselors already provide services in federal prisons.

Lynn said Americans United will fight any attempt to federally fund religious rehabilitation for prisoners.

“Expanding the program to Muslims does not change the constitutional problem,” he said. “Taxpayers should not be expected to pay for people's religious conversion.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.


We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.

Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.

More from Baptist Standard