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'Sordid Reminders of Failure'
What Works behind Bars?

August 30, 2006


Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.


I just came across the following news wire report: "The federal government, [after] a painstaking three years of intensive [study], admitted that the prisons of the United States stand as 'sordid reminders of failure' as forces in the rehabilitation of criminals."

This admission by the government comes in a 1,700-page report that states that except for temporarily warehousing dangerous criminals, our prisons serve little purpose. The report notes, "Many men are being sent to prison only to come out worse social misfits than when they entered."

Well, this shouldn't be news to you. After all, this government study was released in 1939! It could have been written yesterday. I came across the article in an old, yellowed copy of the South Bend, Indiana, Tribune, dated March 26, 1939.

So, sixty-seven years later, what has changed? Practically nothing.

In fact, just two months ago, the blue-ribbon Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons echoed this decades-old report. The commission concluded that not only are our prisons ineffective, they actually endanger public safety! The violence bred inside our nation's prisons makes our communities less safe.

The problem is that the government alone can do little to improve the situation in our prisons. First of all, as the commission rightly notes, governments don't have the resources to fully fund the kinds of "highly structured programs that are proven to reduce misconduct in correctional facilities and to lower recidivism rates after release." In fact, states are cutting funding for such programs. Secondly, to address the root cause of crime—wrong moral choices made by criminals—we have to work for the spiritual and moral transformation of criminals. No government program is suited to do that.

That's why faith-based organizations, working with the government, are key to literally changing the face of our prisons and enhancing public safety. Take the InnerChange Freedom Initiative™, or IFI, an intensive pre-release program in five states that provides educational and rehabilitative programming in the context of spiritual and moral transformation. Prisoner participants are surrounded by volunteer Christians who mentor them in prison and walk beside them after release.

The results? Well, in Texas only 8 percent of IFI graduates were reincarcerated within two years of their release, compared with 20 percent of a control group of other Texas prisoners. And ask any state employee about the conditions of an IFI unit compared to normal prison settings: IFI units are safer, cleaner, and prisoner morale is unmistakably higher.

Sadly enough, as you already know from our comments on "BreakPoint," a federal judge recently ruled that the IFI program in Iowa violates the separation of church and state. Well, Prison Fellowship, IFI, and the state of Iowa have appealed that ruling and hope to have it overturned.

In the meantime, let's not wait another sixty-seven years for yet another government report to tell us that our prisons are not working. We know what works: faith-based programs working hand-in-hand with correctional agencies.




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For printer-friendly version, simply visit www.breakpoint.org and click on Today's Commentary. The printer-friendly link is on the left-hand column.
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Bambi, a UNC sophomore, sidled up to a guest at
the party. She had heard him addressed as doctor
and now she said diffidently, "Doctor, may I ask
a question?"

"Certainly," he said.

"Lately," said Bambi, "I have been having a funny
pain right here under the heart..."

The guest interrupted uncomfortably and said, "I'm
terribly sorry, Bambi, but the truth is, I'm a doctor
of philosophy."

"Oh," said the sophomore, "I'm sorry!" She turned away,
but then overcome with curiosity, she turned back.

"Just one more question, doctor. Tell me, what kind
of disease is philosophy?"






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If money doesn't grow on trees,
then why do banks have branches?






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Q: How do you make a UNC student's eyes sparkle?
A You shine a flashlight in her ear.


===============





"Beadle grasped his companion's cloak even tighter as a gentle breeze rustled
the brown, crisp leaves in the trees.

"Is it a man or is it...them?" He could hardly say the words; his right leg
shook, his eyelids twitched, his mouth went dry and his tongue stuck to the
roof of his mouth.

"Them?" hissed his companion in his face. "Who are them? Can't you say the
word? What are you frightened of?"

Beadle hunched his shoulders and buried his face in the musty black cloak of
his tall, angry companion. "Thulak," he whispered feebly, trying to muffle
his voice so they would not hear him.

His companion raised both his hands and cupped his mouth like the bell of a
trumpet; he took in a deep breath and with a voice that came from the depths
of his soul, he bellowed: "Thulak. Thulak. Thulak." The voice echoed around
the woods; the fox scurried from the brush and ran deeper into the
undergrowth.

A roost of the blackest rooks lifted from the trees above their heads and
their caw-caw-caw filled the night sky as they circled above the branches,
dancing in the moonlight.

"...No," whispered the now terrified Beadle. "Please, Parson Demurral, don't
say that word, they will hear and they will come and get us, my mother said - -"
- - Shadowmancer by G. P. Taylor http://xrl.us/ci8y
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Teenagers express their burning desires
to be different by dressing exactly alike.



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Q: How do UNC student's brain cells die?
A: Alone.




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"How to Be Sure You're
a REAL Christian"
http://www.actsweb.org/htbs1.htm
or 1-888-NEED-HIM (24/7 - free call)



(Not amalgamated with 'Thought & Humor')




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SEARCHING FOR COMMUNITY
By Bethany Torode

We need it, some of us desperately. The trick is to get it
in healthy ways.

http://www.boundless.org/features/a0000923.html


A TIME TO WEEP
by Loren Eaton

When tragedy strikes our friends, we usually try to cheer
them up or comfort them. We could do better, though, just
to grieve right along with them.

http://www.boundless.org/features/a0000920.html
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