Jurisdictions Differ on Faith-Based Prison Treatment

NEWTON, Iowa — State officials ended a faith-based treatment program that was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court judge.

The Department of Corrections terminated Prison Fellowship Ministries’ Inner Change program after enrollment fell below 60 inmates with the March graduation of nearly 30 inmates, officials say.

In December 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled that the program, which operated at the 1,050-bed Newton Correctional Facility since 1999, advanced religion at taxpayer expense.

The Inner Change program applies a Christian perspective in fostering six core values, including integrity, responsibility and productivity, that are intended to help inmates transition back into the community and reduce recidivism, officials say.

Pending the decision from the Court of Appeals, the Department of Corrections had granted a one-year extension to the program after the organization’s latest three-year contract with the state expired in June.

However, the agreement stipulated that no new inmates could be enrolled in the program and officials included a provision allowing prison authorities to terminate the program if enrollment fell below 60 inmates.

Almost 700 inmates have enrolled in the program during the past eight years. Housed in a separate unit, inmates enrolled in the program spent every day engaged in education, substance-abuse and life-skills programming, work and prayer, officials say.

The program at Newton has been entirely financed by donations since July 2007, after Gov. Chet Culver approved legislation eliminating $310,000 in state appropriations to the program — approximately 40 percent of its operating budget.

In 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Robert W. Pratt ruled that the program’s pervasive sectarian character, in which religious and secular components could not be separated, rendered it unconstitutional.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State — a Washington-based advocacy group — filed suit against the state in 2003 claiming the Inner Change program violated the constitutional guarantee of a separation of church and state.

Virginia-based Prison Fellowship Ministries operates similar faith-based treatment programs at prisons in Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri and Texas.

Meanwhile, Ohio is on the verge of enacting legislation to actively involve faith-based groups and nonprofit community organizations in inmate re-entry programs at state correctional facilities.

Bipartisan House Bill 113, which as of press time was awaiting the signature of Gov. Ted Strickland following the Legislature’s approval in March, appropriates no state funding toward re-entry programs involving faith-based or community groups.

The bill requires the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and the Department of Youth Services to actively recruit qualified, registered nonprofit faith-based, business, professional, civic, educational, and community organizations.

The DRC and DYS will allow the organizations to provide on-site re-entry services, including housing, job, and financial management assistance and counseling to inmates and youth wards in state correctional facilities, according to the bill.

Departments are not permitted to endorse religious instruction, messages or perspectives, and the programs will be conducted on a voluntary basis, officials say.

The bill’s mandatory recruitment and access provisions codify existing state corrections agency practices, and the faith-based re-entry services will not increase departmental or state expenditures, officials say.

Co-sponsored by Rep. John White and Rep. Clayton Luckie, the bill is based on the 2006 recommendations of the Correctional Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Task Force. Chaired by Rep. White, the state task force was established to study faith-based solutions to correctional problems, such as recidivism, and the development and provision of faith-based programming.

Ohio’s state prison population reached almost 48,000 in 2006 with annual costs of approximately $24,500 per inmate, according to official figures. Approximately 29,000 inmates were released from Ohio prisons during 2007.

Nationwide, more than two-thirds of the 650,000 inmates released from state prison will be returned to prison within three years of release, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.