As if there weren’t already enough reasons to question the activities of Prison Fellowship Ministries, why would some guy from Alexandria named “Donny Ferguson” – instead of, say, a representative from the organization’s Lansdowne headquarters – be writing letters in its defense to our local newspapers? Oh yeah; Ferguson used to be Eugene Delgaudio’s aide – an interesting association he failed to disclose in his letter.  Ferguson also misrepresents the facts in at least two significant ways, a subject we’ll return to later – but one has to begin by wondering why he would be so interested in protecting this recipient of a hefty Loudoun tax exemption from criticism.

The previous post Prisoner reentry initiative: Beware of manipulated data described how Prison Fellowship Ministries and its political allies in the Bush administration grossly misrepresented the success of Prison Fellowship’s InnerChange Freedom Initiative in order to justify government endorsement and public funding of the program, and suggested keeping a close eye on Governor McDonnell’s recently announced “prisoner reentry initiative.” I cited criminology researcher Dan Mears, who singled out the InnerChange program for criticism, reporting that the real data actually show a higher recidivism rate in comparison to control groups. Mears further questions, “particularly where some degree of coercion is possible, the appropriateness of using any taxpayer dollars for religious programming.”

It is to the issue of coercion that we now turn. In June 2006, a federal judge determined that the operation of InnerChange at a state prison in Iowa constituted an impermissible use of public funds in violation of the Establishment Clause. Judge Robert W. Pratt found that “[f]or all practical purposes, the state has literally established an Evangelical Christian congregation within the walls of one its penal institutions, giving the leaders of that congregation, i.e., InnerChange employees, authority to control the spiritual, emotional, and physical lives of hundreds of Iowa inmates.” Accordingly, “the InnerChange treatment program is hereby permanently enjoined from further operation at the Newton Facility, or any other institution within the Iowa Dept. of Corrections, so long as it is supported by government funding.” Pratt found the violations so egregious that he took the unusual step of ordering Prison Fellowship Ministries to repay more than $1.5 million in state funding. He reasoned that the well-connected activist organization knew exactly what it was doing:

[Prison Fellowship] retained experienced, knowledgeable legal counsel that should have been aware of the constitutional risks associated with state funding of InnerChange. The Defendants, here, are not poorly funded nonpublic schools, but well-financed and sophisticated entities who know every contour of First Amendment law. In addition, evidence shows that the California Department of Corrections provided InnerChange and Prison Fellowship a full legal memorandum explaining why that agency could not, in good conscience, support state funding of InnerChange in its prisons given Establishment Clause jurisprudence.

Among the court’s extensive findings:

• Inmates enrolled in the InnerChange program were afforded privileges not available to other inmates, such as extra visitation time with family members, more books and computers, and earlier access to classes necessary for parole consideration.
• Inmates enrolled in InnerChange were housed in “Unit E,” previously used as the prison’s “honor unit” to reward those inmates “with the highest security or privilege levels associated with low risk behavior… When InnerChange moved into Unit E, inmates already residing there were moved to other [General Population] living units if they did not join the InnerChange program.” Unit E provided such amenities as separate bathrooms with privacy partitions, real doors to which the inmates had keys, and the absence of security cameras.
• InnerChange staff “shared many of the same duties as state correctional officers and other state prison employees,” and were vested with the authority to issue disciplinary reports and impose punishment.
• Although InnerChange/Prison Fellowship makes the claim that all inmates are welcome to participate and that the program does not attempt to convert inmates to Christianity, in practice participation meant renouncing one’s faith if it deviated from the Prison Fellowship-approved form of Evangelical Christianity. For example, the text for one class instructed that “the first step toward experiencing your freedom in Christ is to renounce…any other non-Christian religions or cults.” And although the civic values taught in the program could theoretically be separated from sectarian content, in this case they were not. “The intensive, indoctrinating Christian language and practice that makes up the InnerChange program effectively precludes non-Evangelical Christian inmates from participating.” Practitioners of other faiths who tried to participate testified that they were told by their “Biblical Counselors” that their faith practices were “the worship of false idols,” “against the Bible,” “of darkness,” and other deprecating remarks.
• Decisions regarding inmates’ “progress” were at the sole discretion of InnerChange employees. Here is an excerpt from an evaluation which ended with the dismissal of an inmate from the program:
  

  [y]our conduct has been excellent according to security standards, and you are a hard worker. With you as a member you have always completed your work and assignments, however, you are not displaying the growth needed to remain in the program. Your Focus is not on God and His Son to Change you.

  Another inmate who was expelled from the program was a Native American. He was asked repeatedly by staff if he was “saved,” and why he was continuing to practice his own faith traditions. The reason given for his ultimate dismissal was that he “was not growing spiritually,” and didn’t show enough enthusiasm during worship services. Numerous inmates of other faiths gave similar testimony about why they left or were dismissed from the program.

• To remain in the program through Phase IV (after release), former inmates were required to regularly attend a church approved by InnerChange.
• Public funding accounted for 30 to 40 percent of  InnerChange’s operating costs in the Iowa state prison system. On paper, state funding was supposed to be limited to “non-religious aspects” of the program – but according to InnerChange’s own documents there were no non-religious aspects. The curriculum was designed to be pervasively sectarian and had the intended purpose of indoctrinating InnerChange inmates into a particular form of “the Evangelical Christian belief system.” This description is from the InnerChange White Paper (at p. 59 of the District Court ruling):
  

  Biblical principles are integrated into the entire course curriculum of [InnerChange Freedom Initiative], rather than compartmentalized in specific classes. In other words, the application of Biblical principles is not an agenda item-it is the agenda.

  There was no serious attempt at distinguishing between secular and sectarian aspects of the programming (likely because the directors knew that, in reality, there was no such distinction);  reimbursement was “based on InnerChange’s representations to the state about how each InnerChange employee’s time was utilized” according to “a general understanding of how the time would be spent.”

In summation, Judge Pratt affirmed that “As the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, one of the few absolutes in Establishment Clause jurisprudence is the ‘prohibit[ion against] government-financed or government sponsored indoctrination into the beliefs of a particular religious faith,'” and found that “[t]here is no set of circumstances under which state funds could support the…treatment methods employed in the InnerChange program.”

Prison Fellowship appealed the ruling – and here enter the misrepresentations of Mr. Ferguson. In his letter, he states that the three judge appeals panel, which included former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, “tossed out” the lower court ruling, “allowing the program to operate.” That isn’t even close to the truth, and I suspect Mr. Ferguson knows it.

In fact, on every claim made by Prison Fellowship with regard to the Establishment Clause violation, the appellate judges strongly upheld the district court ruling. There is only one area in which the appellate judges reversed the district court, and that is the matter of “whether recoupment [the $1.5 million Prison Fellowship was ordered to pay back] is a proper remedy.” The order to return funds that had been paid for services rendered before the ruling was handed down was, as already noted, somewhat unusual. And that’s it. That’s the extent of what was reversed in the appeals ruling that “affirms in part, reverses in part, and remands.”

The case was never about the right of Prison Fellowship Ministries to operate a sectarian religious program. They were not enjoined from operating InnerChange in the Iowa prison system, only from operating it “so long as it is supported by government funding.” It is this distinction that both Prison Fellowship Ministries and Mr. Ferguson wish to confuse, with language about “public expressions of religious faith.” At trial, Prison Fellowship lawyers also tried to make the issue their own freedom of religious expression. This did not go over well.

If Prison Fellowship wants to contract its services at public expense, the court said, “they are burdened with the same responsibilities of any state employee: to respect the civil rights of all persons, including the First Amendment’s prohibition on indoctrinating others in their form of religion. In the context of this case, the Defendants have no legitimate interest in the accommodation of their own religious beliefs, but just the opposite. [Emphasis added]”

It is Orwellian to suggest, as does Mr. Ferguson in his letter, that the use of taxpayer money to fund the religious indoctrination of a (quite literally) captive audience is tantamount to “public expressions of religious faith.” The InnerChange program accomplishes exactly the opposite of free expression of religion within the prisons in which it operates: It marginalizes and punishes through disparate treatment all expressions of faith other than those approved of by the unaccountable staff of the InnerChange program. As the appellate ruling points out in one of its many affirmations of the lower court, “the inmate had no genuine and independent private choice; “he could either exercise his freedom of religion or avail himself of the one comprehensive treatment program, but not both.

Likewise, objections to Prison Fellowship’s continuing tax exemption here in Loudoun have nothing to do with the organization’s right to religious expression, which is not threatened in the least. That right is guaranteed to all of us under the First Amendment. Since they’re trying so hard to convince us that religious expression is the issue at stake when it clearly is not, Prison Fellowship must want something more.

There is absolutely no indication that Prison Fellowship concedes any wrongdoing in the Iowa case – in fact, they have continued to make themselves out to be the victims of discrimination – or that they wouldn’t engage in exactly the same behavior again if given the chance. For example, in Virginia.