Jesus Really Does Save
Piles of money -- by evangelizing on the taxpayer dime. After coming back Saturday night from Paris and Courmayeur, Italy (pictures and details soon), I woke up in the wee hours to the article in The New York Times about convicts getting much nicer digs if they suck up to the evangelical Christians running a religious program. Diana B. Henriques and Andrew Lehren write in The New York Times:
Life was different in Unit E at the state prison outside Newton, Iowa.The toilets and sinks — white porcelain ones, like at home — were in a separate bathroom with partitions for privacy. In many Iowa prisons, metal toilet-and-sink combinations squat beside the bunks, to be used without privacy, a few feet from cellmates.
The cells in Unit E had real wooden doors and doorknobs, with locks. More books and computers were available, and inmates were kept busy with classes, chores, music practice and discussions. There were occasional movies and events with live bands and real-world food, like pizza or sandwiches from Subway. Best of all, there were opportunities to see loved ones in an environment quieter and more intimate than the typical visiting rooms.
But the only way an inmate could qualify for this kinder mutation of prison life was to enter an intensely religious rehabilitation program and satisfy the evangelical Christians running it that he was making acceptable spiritual progress. The program — which grew from a project started in 1997 at a Texas prison with the support of George W. Bush, who was governor at the time — says on its Web site that it seeks “to ‘cure’ prisoners by identifying sin as the root of their problems” and showing inmates “how God can heal them permanently, if they turn from their sinful past.”
One Roman Catholic inmate, Michael A. Bauer, left the program after a year, mostly because he felt the program staff and volunteers were hostile toward his faith.
“My No. 1 reason for leaving the program was that I personally felt spiritually crushed,” he testified at a court hearing last year. “I just didn’t feel good about where I was and what was going on.”
For Robert W. Pratt, chief judge of the federal courts in the Southern District of Iowa, this all added up to an unconstitutional use of taxpayer money for religious indoctrination, as he ruled in June in a lawsuit challenging the arrangement.
The Iowa prison program is not unique. Since 2000, courts have cited more than a dozen programs for having unconstitutionally used taxpayer money to pay for religious activities or evangelism aimed at prisoners, recovering addicts, job seekers, teenagers and children.
Nevertheless, the programs are proliferating. For example, the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest prison management company, with 65 facilities and 71,000 inmates under its control, is substantially expanding its religion-based curriculum and now has 22 institutions offering residential programs similar to the one in Iowa. And the federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs at least five multifaith programs at its facilities, is preparing to seek bids for a single-faith prison program as well.
Government agencies have been repeatedly cited by judges and government auditors for not doing enough to guard against taxpayer-financed evangelism. But some constitutional lawyers say new federal rules may bar the government from imposing any special requirements for how faith-based programs are audited.
And, typically, the only penalty imposed when constitutional violations are detected is the cancellation of future financing — with no requirement that money improperly used for religious purposes be repaid.
But in a move that some constitutional lawyers found surprising, Judge Pratt ordered the prison ministry in the Iowa case to repay more than $1.5 million in government money, saying the constitutional violations were serious and clearly foreseeable.
Yay, Judge Pratt!
Sorry, but as long as we still have separation of church and state in this country (and I'm optimistic, with Bush's popularity sounding like it's measured in degrees Celcius), we have no business funding anything but the teaching of secular ethics in prison.
While I'm a Christian, I object to this indoctrination, and privileges granted to inmates who can convince a bunch of Bible-thumping Jesus freaks that they're becoming fine upstanding Christians. Protestant Christians, that is. Apparently, Catholics have some problems.
Not only is this grossly unfair to those of differing faiths (or no faith), but the criteria for progress is extremely subjective.
Convince some lunatic that you're subscribing to his views -- "And Ah buh-leeve that JAY-zus dahd foah mah sins!" -- and you, too, can have preferential treatment. You could be doing good, viable services for your prison community, genuinely making progress in your anti-social bent that caused you to be locked up in the first place, but if you don't pray to Jay-zus, and present yourself to these fine, upstanding evangelicals, then screw you.
Patrick at December 10, 2006 1:41 AM
Given the choice between paying to make them Christians or letting them become radical Muslims for free, this sounds like quite the bargain.
Brian at December 10, 2006 7:47 AM
If Bush's faith is so odious, why be patient with
Clinton, who spent every Sunday morning in a pew?
Also, everybody please read this:
http://tinyurl.com/y97shq
Perhaps religion has such a hold on people because rationality is so well practiced by the very selfish.
Crid at December 10, 2006 8:24 AM
If Bush's faith is so odious, why be patient with
Clinton, who spent every Sunday morning in a pew?
Clinton didn't hire a chief of family planning whose "science" comes mainly out of his imagination.
More on the tiny url later.
And the choice, Brian, isn't Christian or nothing.
I have secular (non-imaginary friend-based) ethics, and I'd venture that I'm more ethical than many or most god believers. And my ethics don't come out of fear that I'll burn in hell. You really don't need to believe in Zeus, Jesus, Santa, or The Tooth Fairy to be a good person. Try this on:
Be kind, live ethically, live rationally, and "leave the campground better than you found it."
That's my religion. No god or belief in unproven crap whatsoever.
Amy Alkon at December 10, 2006 9:21 AM
"we have no business funding anything but the teaching of secular ethics in prison."
Absolutely. But we should allow volunteer chaplains time to work with religious inmates.
Lena at December 10, 2006 11:05 AM
we should allow volunteer chaplains time to work with religious inmates.
I don't have a problem in the world with that.
Amy Alkon at December 10, 2006 11:39 AM
Oh, and that "Jesus" you think you're going to meet after you die? .... is really just Hay-soos, the gardener at the cemetary.
The Necklace Lady at December 10, 2006 4:25 PM
You got it, Necklace Lady. Also, it seems really wasteful to take up space and perhaps pollute the groundwater after you're dead. I just had a talk about this with my friend Pierre in Paris, who is 65-plus, and does not believe in god. We both think it makes the most sense to be cremated. He also thinks, for the earth's sake, we need to stop making so many "inutile" (useless) throwaway goods.
Amy Alkon at December 10, 2006 6:30 PM
Amy - I think you miss my point.
People in prison don't have a whole lot going for them. There are plenty of Islamists in there actively recruiting among the hopeless.
Given that these people are not exactly MENSA material, do you honestly think that what you call 'rationality' is gonna supply them with any meaning to their screwed up lives?
Given that, would you rather have them come out of prison a Jesus-freak, or a potential splodeydope-in-waiting?
Oh, and thanks for taking care of my duplicate.
Brian at December 10, 2006 8:14 PM
You don't have to be a genius to be rational, and secular ethics work just fine. I believe it was Sam Harris, in the debate he clearly won with the blowhard religious fanatic Dennis Prager, who pointed out that most felons probably believe in god (and probably in Jesus), and see where that's gotten them. Have you ever looked at what secular ethics are? There's self-interest in being a good person, actually -- much moreso than in serving the irrationality behind the business that is the church.
And Lena is right - fine by me if they want to let in volunteer astrologers, Wiccans, and Christians, among others. You wouldn't keep out certain forms of irrationality, now would you? Why should silly Christian belief, without evidence, in god be given priority over the equally silly belief that I'll have a bad day tomorrow because of something happening between Cancer and Aquarius?
Amy Alkon at December 10, 2006 9:23 PM
I'll throw one in for Brian. Monotheistic religions have become the WalMart of the belief world: one stop shopping for all your spiritual needs, at a low price. Secular humanism equates to a boutique shop at the airport in this venue. If we actively discourage Christian ministry in prisons, this will give Islam more opportunities.
doombuggy at December 12, 2006 2:04 AM
Just because teaching secular humanism hasn't been tried (there's no money in getting people to be rational instead of believing in the equivalent of the tooth fairy -- which is BIG business), doesn't mean it won't work as well or better than bullshit belief in god.
Amy Alkon at December 12, 2006 4:14 AM
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