Court Jeopardizes Bush's Faith-Based Initiative

[Frodo]

Court Rejects Evangelical Prison Plan Over State Aid

By NEELA BANERJEE
Published: June 3, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 2 — A federal judge in Iowa ruled Friday that a state-financed evangelical Christian program to help inmates re-enter society was "pervasively sectarian" and violated the separation of church and state.

The decision has set the stage for an appeals process that is expected to explore more broadly the constitutionality of the Bush administration's religion-based initiative programs, according to plaintiffs, defendants and legal experts.

Prison programs run by religious groups have increased over the last decade or so, as policy makers, prison and law enforcement officials and prisoner advocates have focused on the high rates of recidivism when inmates return to society, said Robert Tuttle, a law professor at George Washington University who is an expert on religion-based initiatives. Proponents of such programs in prisons have said that the transformative experience of religion can counter recidivism.

In April, the Justice Department announced plans to begin a religious-based program, offered in a single faith, in at least a half-dozen federal prisons, according to legal analysts and critics of the program.

The case was filed more than three years ago by Americans United for Separation of Church and State against the Iowa Department of Corrections and InnerChange Freedom Initiative, an organization affiliated with Prison Fellowship Ministries. Prison Fellowship was founded by Charles W. Colson, a close ally of President Bush and an influential evangelical who went to prison for his role in the Watergate cover-up.

In his ruling on Friday, Judge Robert W. Pratt, chief judge of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, said he was not ruling on the efficacy of religious programs in rehabilitating inmates or "the ultimate truthfulness about religion."

Instead, Judge Pratt ruled that the InnerChange program had violated the separation of church and state by using money from taxpayers to pay for a religious program, one that gave special privileges to inmates who accepted its evangelical Christian teachings and terms.

[Speed of Sound]

This is a very good decision. Its clear that this would have been used to install Christianity into inmates. The government can rehibilitate without brainwashing k thx.