News-Record.com

Nancy, it appears the state made a tactical mistake by paying for it. Outside groups do this type of thing on a volunteer basis, as you know, and there is less of a potential for this type of complication. And I am very glad they do it.

Agreed: the state shouldn't pay for it. But Nancy, you asked if a person should be saved OR if he should be released to cause more crimes. Does "saving" cause criminals to stop committing crimes? There's proven cause and effect here? Or could there be some criminals who pretend "to be saved" to get early paroles?

I want my faith in the jury system and to keep my religious beliefs personal. Faith offered in jail should be voluntarily given and received.

The article said that inmates get benefits from participating in the program. Interesting... all this is doing is offering advantages over others in exchange for ... what? Public expressions of religion?

Did you know that religious surveys of prison population has around 98% identifying themselves as belonging to one religion or another when they go in? All this program does is feed the age-old system of making life nicer for those who can act religious while behind bars. And it puts government money into the hands of the people running the program.

Only if these people can provide objective evidence that their mumbo-jumbo has a real, positive effect on repeat offenders, should the government even consider giving these people any money. I wonder if they've even dreamed of getting anyone to help provide such evidence.

I read somewhere that if convicts just sit on a bench pumping iron while behind bars, that we'd better be fearful once they get out.

I think there should be educational opportunities behind bars. I think they should get counseling and drug treatment, when appropriate. A whole wing just for Christians or for Muslims or for Jews -- on my dime? I don't think so. I think that people of faith with legitimate ministries/programs should be allowed inside to work with inmates on a voluntary basis -- the inmates volunteer to participate, the people of faith volunteer by conscious or conviction or whatever.

Eric you're right: one study says the prison ministry that's before the court right now seems to say that getting 'saved' behind bars isn't as much of a deterrent as claimed.

But on the other hand...if faith-based programs are getting money to do everything else, then why not use it on the population we're most afraid of, even if it just changes one life?

Make me believe that behind-the-bars religious prosletyzing is more than just prosletyzing and truly impacts on multiple prisoners' future criminal acts, and I'll go for it. But the danger of state-supported religion programming is that it does exactly what it's not supposed to do - create government-sponsored religion.

You ask about one prisoner's conversion? Would you agree to spend that $$ if just one person benefitted from a new law or would you call that the "Terry Schiavo" effect?

There's a difference between personal religious faith and government-sponsored pandering to certain religious groups. I am in favor of the first and truly fear the second.

Good point, Sue (the Schiavo effect).