Judge Rules Christian Prison Program Unconstitutional; Appeal Planned
by Jody Brown
June 5, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Evidently it matters not that a well-known and highly successful prison ministry believes one of its premier programs is constitutional and well within the guidelines of the First Amendment, or that statistics bear out the effectiveness of the program. A federal judge has ruled the program is unconstitutional -- and now the program that equips prisoners to successfully re-enter society is in jeopardy.A federal judge has ruled that an Iowa prison program that involves inmates immersing themselves in evangelical Christianity is unconstitutional and must be shut down. Associated Press reports that Judge Robert Pratt, in a ruling expected to have national implications, said Prison Fellowship's InnerChange Freedom Initiative amounts to a government establishment of religion.
Pratt ruled that the Iowa Department of Corrections must close the program within 60 days and that $1.5 million in contract payments must be returned to state officials, but he suspended those orders while an appeal is pending.
Prison Fellowship, which sponsors similar programs in Texas, Minnesota, Kansas and Arkansas, argued that the Iowa program is voluntary and has secular benefits. The ministry claims the program has produced "dramatic results" in the lives of hardened criminals and has been effective in stopping what it describes as "the revolving door of crime."
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Mark Earley |
If Judge Pratt's ruling is allowed to stand, says Prison Fellowship president Mark Earley, it will "enshrine" religious discrimination. The ruling, he states, "has attacked the right of people of faith to operate on a level playing field in the public arena and to provide services to those who volunteered to receive them."In addition, observes Earley, the federal judge's decision fosters what the ministry leader describes as a "lock 'em up and throw away the key" approach to fighting crime.
"It assumes by warehousing criminals and providing no services to help them change, that society will be safer when they get out," he says. "Nothing could be further from the truth." Prison Fellowship says it plans to appeal the ruling to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and that it believes the case will eventually make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
It was more than three years ago -- February 2003 -- that the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit against the InnerChange Freedom Initiative in Iowa, alleging that it represented an excessive entanglement between state and religion.
