http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060603/ap_on_...WtkBHNlYwM3MTg-
Recently, a judge ordered Iowa to close down its Prison Bible programs, on the basis that it is unconstitutional. While I don't think that religion should be forced on anyone, prison inmates need religion. Many prison inmates grew up in broken homes and didn't have parents around to teach them right and wrong. Religion does a good job at teaching people right and wrong. Also, Religion can help cut down on the discipline problems in prisons, which include things like gang violence and prison rapes.

As far as the accusations of Iowa forcing Christianity on prison inmates, the State of Iowa can give prison inmates choices like having a Muslim program, a Budhist program, etc. As far as the use of public funds go, the mainstream churches can raise private funds to run the program.

So the question for debate is
Does the State of Iowa have the right to operate a Christian ministry inside its prisons?
If the State cannot use public funds for it, should Iowa be allowed to have private donors operate the program inside its prisons?

Does the State of Iowa have the right to operate a Christian ministry inside its prisons?

I would say it should be fairly obvious- you have the most "captive" audience one could imagine, with no choice of whether to participate in religious brainwashing? Ya, think it is pretty easy to call this one "unconstitutional".


If the State cannot use public funds for it, should Iowa be allowed to have private donors operate the program inside its prisons?

No, because they are locked up and have no choice, the brain washing issue is obvious- "go to church, and we will be easy on you, don't go, and there will be sanctions".

Not everyone in jail is a pedophile and deserving torture or mind wipe- in fact, are jails are mostly full of decent poeple that ran afoul of bad laws- mostly drug laws.

To inflict a religious program on them is a little too Taliban like for me!

Any statistics to back this assertion up?

I tend to agree with CruisingRam on this issue.

If the State cannot use public funds for it, should Iowa be allowed to have private donors operate the program inside its prisons?

This is a harder question to answer. There is currently an NPR story about an Ohio challenge to a federal law demanding that federal prisoner’s religious practices be accommodated.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4544015

If, for example, a prisoner is Catholic, should they have access to mass and communion on a regular basis? I’m not in anyway in favor of mind neutering by religion, but some prisoners enter the penal system with an operational religious system. In my opinion access to their system of beliefs should be accommodated.

I do not think prisoners should get good time credit for participating in religious services.



Sleeper,

I think you are asking the wrong question. No prisoner should be subjected to “torture or mind wipe.” (brainwashing?) regardless of what they’ve done or how they got there.

Does the State of Iowa have the right to operate a Christian ministry inside its prisons?

The way this question is worded, the obvious answer is that no government entity should be allowed, under any circumstances, to operate any ministry of any faith. If any public money at all is to be spent for religious programs within prisons, they must be strictly limited to meeting the basic religious rights of prisoners. They must also be spent in ways which respect the religious rights of prisoners of all faiths, and of no faith. If you provide Bibles, you must provide all recognized religious texts that are requested. (It is not always easy to decide what a "recognized religious text" may be. This shows how getting government mixed up with religion always opens a can of worms.) If you provide clergy of one denomination, in a way similar to military chaplins, you must provide clergy for any recognized denomination of any faith. (The same difficulties apply.)

Certainly, prisoners have the right, within reason, to practice their own faiths while incarcerated. This in no way allows the government to promote any faith. The United Nations has adopted a set of guidelines called Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners which contain these clauses:



(Quoted from Religious Tolerance.org, a good, neutral source for information on religious issues.)

Link

These guidelines are pretty vague; what do "sufficient" and "qualified" mean? However, it's a decent place to start.

If the State cannot use public funds for it, should Iowa be allowed to have private donors operate the program inside its prisons?

Such programs can be acceptable, with certain restrictions.

*Not a penny of public funding

*All denominations of all recognized faiths must be allowed to have such programs

*Organizations promoting non-religious worldviews must also be allowed to have such programs

*Prisoners must participate on a genuinely voluntary basis, with no coercion of any kind

*Prisoners must not receive any special benefits for participating in such programs

It looks like the original link is broken so here is a link to what appears to be the same story:

http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view...rticleid=142009



I don't see anywhere in the story that stated that the inmates had no choice. It actually appears that the program was ruled unconstitutional because of the benefits provided to the inmates if they participated as you mention in your next answer.



I didn't see any place where it said there would be sanctions for not participating.

I would ease up on the emotional terms here and try to be a little more objective though as my first thought was "well here is an anti-religion crusader". I have no problem with religious programs in prisons and I actually was feeling that this was another "anti-religion" law based on what I read here. Then I actually read the story and find my views more in line with yours, minus the emotional rally cry.

1. It appears that the state was not hiring the group to promote Christianity but "to improve inmate behavior and reduce recidivism". Whether or not this group is qualified to do that or not I don't know. The judges ruling that they need to repay the state $1.53 million could mean that he didn't think they were qualified or that they simply weren't fulfilling the terms of their contract.

2. No one deserves "torture or mind wipe" be they pedophile, murder, or decent druggie

3. I think the state has an obligation to provide access to religion by the inmates and access to the inmates by religions but it is in no way obligated to pay for it beyond what the reasonable costs of that access are. (i.e. they shouldn't charge a religion or inmate for the electricity for the lights of the rooms they are using). The religions should have access to space, and reasonable requests, such as for seating/tables/etc. should be honored, but if the religion wants to bring in Bibles, Qu'ran, etc. they need to provide those.

The sanctions for NOT participating are obvious- YOU DON'T GET OUT OF JAIL AS FAST- "play or stay" as they say.

Lynn’s group accused Prison Fellowship Ministries of giving preferential treatment to inmates participating in the program. They were given special visitation rights, movie-watching privileges, access to computers and access to classes needed for early parole.

Many folks outside the system and have never seen what the "inside" is like- doesn't realise the enormous pressures and stress on an inmate to do whatever he is told- and the usual "carrot" are those items listed above- teh alternative- are NOT having those items. Poeple been killed over those items above, those items become dead serious in lock up.

If you have been in the military- there is a similar thing , in a much nicer way, of course, during basic training. You can be the most anti-church religion hating person on teh planet in basic training- but you will find yourself in 3-4 church services on a sunday- because it is the only place you WON'T be yelled at, and may even get some sleep

The alternative? Don't go to church, same schedule as usual- DI yelling at you, cleaning stuff, at parade rest or attention alot.

When you have darn little privelages or safety, it is very, very easy to do anything you want with that person's "approval"- but really, it is still duress.

So when pressed for evidence to back up your claim, you produced an accusation by some group. Accusations are not evidence. And whether or not the accusation is well founded has little to no bearing on the question asked, which is whether a state has any business setting up religious services at all.

My answer, for the record, is that it's every bit as constitutionally appropriate to set up such services in prisons as it is in the military. And calling it "brainwashing" is extremely hyperbolic, at best. Do you describe prisoner education and reform programs the same way?

Okay then- do you deny the accusations?

If so- you need to provide a link to the opposite- I provided evidence- you only accused the evidence of being biased- therefore- you need to provide some evidence to the contrary- because OBVIOUSLY- the judge saw some evidence of this- because he found for the plaintif- correct?

Are prisoners NOT in the program recieving all the things I mentioned?

Kinda defeats the purpose or recruiting tool for the program not to have them- don't ya think?

Are you telling me there is no reward for this program?

Yes, I am against religious brainwashing, because that is what it is- however, I am not against behavior mod (brainwashing as well) in a securlar manner that only pertains to the behavior, with no political or religious overtones. I think it is a very dangerous precedent to start using some kind of non-secular or non-political dogma to influence prisoner behavior. I think you can see the pitfalls of such a situation.

IT is a very delicate tightrope you walk when you do "behavior mod" on a prisoner- you see, because you do not really extinguish a behavior, you replace it with another behavior. And the extreme behaviors that you are replacing take some pretty severe new behaviors to "take"- even still, you have a pretty high recidivism rate -

Let me as you this straight up- how reliable do you think jailhouse conversions are?

I don't affirm or deny them, because there's no evidence presented one way or the other, and because like I said, it has no bearing on the constitutional issue being raised by the topic's debate questions.


Again, I have no idea, but if you're implying that they're not terribly reliable, then that would tend to work against your whole "brainwashing" theory.

There HAS been evidence presented Blackstone- straight up, the judge saw evidence of this, stated it when striking down the system- you are just not buying the evidence- so, let me shift it again, to try and nail you down to a specific debate question

special visitation rights, movie-watching privileges, access to computers and access to classes needed for early parole.
IF those items exist for a religiois program, and not a non-religious program

In that context, can you answer the two questions?

Well, the link didn't work for me...but as far as I can tell this program is the equivilant of a state-sponsored religion, which of course is unConstitutional. The reason is that Christianity was the only religion that the good people of Iowa decided was necessary in jails. If inmates were given the religious counceling of their choice this would be both a good idea and a legal one, but because all other religions seem to be excluded this is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

This is even more true if Crusing Ram is right in saying inmates who participate in the ministry are given preferential treatment, do you have a link CR?

CP

This is an interesting issue in itself. Does the state have the obligation of providing religious access to an inmate? I would argue it doesn't. You're in jail; you don't gt the right to access whatever you want. Food, water, shelter, basic needs--ok. Beyond that, no.

You need God in jail? Should've thought about that before you did the crime.

Does the State of Iowa have the right to operate a Christian ministry inside its prisons?

Absolutely not. State sponsorship of a religious program is unconstitutional. Period.

If the State cannot use public funds for it, should Iowa be allowed to have private donors operate the program inside its prisons?

I don’t think the “private organizations” behind this are interested in doing it merely from the Christian goodness of their hearts - they want to be paid. Though your link is broken, there are many articles pertaining to the organization behind these programs; Inner Change Freedom Initiatives/Prison Fellowship Ministries. There is no indication that prisoners were given any choice of worship; it was fundie Christianity or nuthin’ at all.

And do we really want prisoners, violent or non-violent being pumped full of this?

I’m with CR – no state-sponsored religious brainwashing allowed, thankyewverymuch. (And how outrageous is it that prisoners who attended these come-to-Jesus meetings got special privileges??? )


Nobody needs to have state-sponsored preaching to have God in jail. Praying and being religious/faithful doesn't require any special accoutrements.

You bet people need God in Jail. The prisoners need to know that if they're screwing around on Earth committing sins (e.g. crime), then the man upstairs is going to get upset. I've known Muslims and Christians who used to be alchoholics and drug addicts until they got their lives straigtened out through Allah or Jesus. Let's not underestimate the power of religion.