Caged Faith
Indiana is trying out a new rehabilitive program in three prisons. The program is centered around intensive segregated religious education for the inmates willing to participate.
“Three Indiana prisons — one each for men, women and juveniles — are joining a growing trend in corrections by creating segregated housing units for prisoners who volunteer to be immersed in religious training. For those uninterested in such lessons — and to appease critics who call the faith dorms a tool for state-supported religion — prison officials also are offering a secular track that would focus on character building. But the majority of the first 202 volunteers are going the faith-based route.”
The plan which is already drawing fire from the local ACLU places the participants in separate dorms where they are meant to build supportive relationships with eachother.
“…the segregated dorms put inmates seeking a spiritual path to redemption under one roof, where they are encouraged to live as a supportive community. There will be classes and assigned readings concerning their sacred texts, spiritual self-assessments and work on developing a moral code that falls in line with their chosen faith. They will keep journals, attend small group discussions and hold personal reflection times, in addition to regular worship services.”
In theory, all faith traditions will be allowed to participate and be granted mentors from their faith of choice.
“Prison officials hope to find volunteer mentors for each faith, said Tim Brown, a corrections official who helped develop the program. But if teachers of pagan, Wiccan or humanist beliefs can’t be found, for instance, other open-minded volunteers will be asked to do the best they can.”
I’m of a mixed mind on the issue. I will be interested to hear about what response local Pagan groups will receive when they offer to become mentors, and I will be interested to see how harmonious these mixed-faith groups are in the long run (will a evangelical inmate find harmony with a Pagan or Native inmate). They are definitely skirting the church/state separation line here and I will expect legal challenges to be forthcoming. I think that what would make these programs work isn’t so much God (or gods) but instead the intensive social retraining and one-on-one interaction the program promises. But maybe a greater influx of religion could at least reform the brutality of most modern prisons, I know that if I found myself in jail I would sign up for this even if they didn’t offer a course for Paganism.
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