Faith Based Prisons

[sandnsea]

This is from a news link in LBN.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/7426617.htm

Okay, don't react, read this. Then remove the religion part of it and sit back, then burst out laughing.

Isn't this what we've been saying prisons ought to be for YEARS???? I mean, I'm glad they finally see that treating prisoners like decent human beings; providing education, job training, support when they get out of prison, and decent surroundings is the way to rehabilitate prisoners.

Like Clark said earlier today; every religion believes those that have should care for those who are less fortunate and Democrats live this every single day. (We need the quote and we need to put it in our wallets)

[whirlygigspin]

1. Let them pray

they will find their inner democrat

[PurityOfEssence]

2. If you need a book to tell you right from wrong, you have no moral compass

If you need fear of supernatural retaliation to follow those rules, you're not a good person.

[LeahMira]

15. I disagree... sort of

If you need fear of supernatural retaliation to follow those rules, you're not a good person.

Not all faiths appeal to fear of supernatural retaliation to help folks keep in line. Most Christian groups do, though, so apparently these are going to be Christian prisons.

American Indians who are incarcerated have been begging to have access to spiritual guidance in line with their traditional beliefs. It's been a long, hard struggle for them to have even minimal opportunities to pray and live in their traditional ways, and the struggle goes on.

Large numbers of Muslims, both Black Muslims and Arab Muslims, are in our jails. Wonder if there are going to be faith-based facilities and services for them?

From the article:
Prisoners who meet the minimum requirements will be offered space at the facility on a first-come, first-served basis. Once accepted, they will receive religious-based classes in everything from ''parenting'' and ''character building'' to job training, Ivey said.

Volunteers from religious groups will also help inmates find work after their release, Ivey said. The department is already negotiating with volunteer groups from various religions and expects to prepare the prison by Dec. 24, he said.

Why don't all prisons offer these kinds of services? Not religious-based, of course, but is it asking so much to imagine that any facility would offer job training (other than working in the laundry or the kitchen) and job placement assistance after release?

[PurityOfEssence]

20. Much of this is dead-on

We should attempt to train and place inmates if we really want them to reintegrate into society, but conservatism has always dominated incarceration methods, and these place a higher premium on punishment than the well-being of society.

There are programs out there, but the mindset is incorrect in most cases; although we call it "correction", it's punishment.

Access to one's religious counsellors shouldn't be denied, but this goes way beyond this. I also accuse them of wanting to skew the record and "prove" that religion is a necessary component, and further proof of the undeniable beauty of the concept. It is another attempt at theocracy.

My initial contention is aimed squarely at fundamentalists: they tend to believe that man is a scurrilous wretch that knows no ethics without the fear of the big whatever, and I deeply resent and dispute that. I say that those who believe that are morally and ethically inferior. Besides, that, with penance, there are too many loopholes to allow continued and unchecked nastiness within these systems, while still providing an ultimate reward.

[sandnsea]

3. Well this really went far

It's the principles of rehabilitation that Democrats have wanted implemented in prisons for years. I advocated these kinds of prison institutions, sans religion, 20 years ago. The basic principles of being decent human beings that transcends religion. Don't get hung up on fighting the religious angle on this. Welcome these people to finally agreeing to rehabilitate prisoners, like liberals have been advocating all along. How can they call us bleeding hearts if they're advocating the exact same stuff???

[RamseyClark22]

4. >>

"If you need a book to tell you right from wrong, you have no moral compass
If you need fear of supernatural retaliation to follow those rules, you're not a good person."

That's an interesting thing to say, from what ideas was your 'moral compass formed'? Couldn't possibly have been from anything religious.. never mind the fact our society was based upon Judaeo Christian beliefs.

I think rehabilitation is a good thing in some cases. I'm not seeing much of a deterrence offered by it though in say violent crimes, quite frankly you can kill someone and live the rest of your life in a more comfortable way than people in any 3rd world country live when they've committed no crime other than being born.

[sandnsea]

7. Separate them out

We really shouldn't be putting non-violent offenders in prison with violent ones in the first place. We should have separate facilities to deal with the varities of inmates, drug treatment, sociopaths, petty criminals, sex offenders, and mentally ill. There's no reason to treat any of them badly. And there's also no reason for all those people in 3rd world countries to live that way either, but that's another topic. I don't believe in punitiveness. However, I do believe there are prisoners who can never be let out, we just don't need to treat them like dogs.

Retribution serves no purpose. Accountability and responsibility are the only things that work in the long run. If you just send a child to their room every time you're not happy about their behavior and never SAY anything, they won't know what's going on.

If we act like better human beings, we'll create better human beings in our society. I just believe that. Religion or not.

But I'm not sure you're responding to me anyway, since I didn't say anything about a moral compass.

[pistoff democrat]

13. Well, I am responding to you.

Why in the world can't we have humane prisons just because it's the right thing to do?

We definitely need to separate out the mentally ill, violent and non-violent offenders and they should all be treated with dignity.

Those who will re-enter society must be given rehab.

However, I really do have a problem with 'faith-based' prisons...just as I do with 'faith-based' charities. How many faiths? You want religious wars in prisons or separate prisons for each religion?

I'll settle with your 3rd paragraph, minus the "Religion or not." ending!

[LeahMira]

16. Question, sand...

I don't believe in punitiveness. However, I do believe there are prisoners who can never be let out, we just don't need to treat them like dogs.

I don't believe in punishment either. But which group of prisoners do you think can never be let out? Other than those who are mentally ill, I can't imagine there are any folks who can't be released eventually, and I think those who are mentally ill should be in hospitals and under the care of doctors as well as guards.

Actually, in my ideal but very theoretical world, no one would be given a sentence of more than ten or so years. But, during that time, every resource we have would be sent their way: counseling, job training, education, life skills, etc.

It seems to me that it's just wrong to put someone in prison for thirty or forty years and ignore him, or worse, as you say, treat him like an animal. If we put him in prison and then made a serious effort to rehabilitate him, wouldn't that move people out of the prison system and in the long run result in a smaller, more manageable and treatable corrections system? Seems to me that it would.

So, who, other than those prisoners who are mentally ill, couldn't be let out eventually?

[izzie]

12. You are into a subject that interests me but.....

the first quote is really pesty.For one thing they have tested this and found that most people only do right because they fear what will happen if they do not do it. Few people do right just becuase it is the right thing to do. And Men score higher at doing right because you should than women. Now I think this came out of a study done at Yale called the Nurenburg test and why people do things just because someone told them to do it. Why would a great country like Germany produce the results of WW2 etc. I can not find it on the internet and my college books are long gone. But that quote you first put on does feel wrong.I am also getting pretty old and just living tells me most people do not just do right but fear what will happen to them if they do not.

[LeahMira]

17. Punishment doesn't work very well...

That's an interesting thing to say, from what ideas was your 'moral compass formed'? Couldn't possibly have been from anything religious.. never mind the fact our society was based upon Judaeo Christian beliefs.

Plenty of people have grown up in this country, especially in the last fifty or so years, with absolutely no religious influence in the home and they have gone on to lead fine lives. Others, raised in religious homes have, as adults, chosen to separate themselves from a religious community and are living fine lives also.

BTW, the founders were influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, which was a movement away from religious control.

I think rehabilitation is a good thing in some cases. I'm not seeing much of a deterrence offered by it though in say violent crimes, quite frankly you can kill someone and live the rest of your life in a more comfortable way than people in any 3rd world country live when they've committed no crime other than being born.

Two things here:
First of all, there isn't much rehabilitation offered in prisons. Discipline has to be self-discipline in order to work well long term. In most prisons, what rehabilitation is offered is in the way of discipline that sort of beats the prisoner into submission. Once that kind of discipline is removed, there isn't always much reason to behave any longer.

Secondly, whether a person lives a "comfortable life" or not has no relationship to their crimes... or at least it shouldn't. Someone who has committed a crime has to live with himself. A person can live a "comfortable life" and still feel uncomfortable with himself. That would be conscience at work. And even if the conscience isn't working really well, a thief, for instance, imagines that everyone else out there is just as eager to steal from him as he is to steal from them. That makes for a less than "comfortable life" for anyone in that situation.

Some of the Enron guys might have thought that crime pays, but I'd imagine that the headaches they have now are not the headaches any of us would want to deal with. Even if they get off, I'd think they would be reluctant to put themselves in a position to be caught at anything again.

[JNelson6563]

18. Ever hear of the "greater good"?

Some of us find that motivating.

Christianity works with two things, fear, always effective to keep the masses in line, and redemption. For One's Self. You do good, you too can be saved. Not sent to a torturous hell to burn and suffer forever (because God loves you) but to Heaven, the happy place.

Some of us don't need a book filled with massacres and other horrible things to tell us killing is wrong, so is stealing and lying (and all the other "wrongs". These things hurt the greater good.

BTW, in case you didn't know, the Ten Commandments aren't original. Lots of other civilizations had similar, even better rules. Check it out:

The man I am talking about is Solon the Athenian. Solon was born, we believe, around 638 B.C.E., and lived until approximately 558, but the date in his life of greatest importance to us is the year he was elected to create a constitution for Athens, 594 B.C.E. How important is this man? Let's examine what we owe to him, in comparison with the legendary author (or at last, in legend, the transmitter) of the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments. Solon is the founder of Western democracy and the first man in history to articulate ideas of equal rights for all citizens, and though he did not go nearly as far in the latter as we have come today, Moses can claim no connection to either. Solon was the first man in Western history to publicly record a civil constitution in writing. No one in Hebrew history did anything of the kind, least of all Moses. Solon advocated not only the right but even the duty of every citizen to bear arms in the defense of the state--to him we owe the 2nd Amendment. Nothing about that is to be found in the Ten Commandments of Moses. Solon set up laws defending the principles and importance of private property, state encouragement of economic trades and crafts, and a strong middle class--the ideals which lie at the heart of American prosperity, yet which cannot be credited at all to Moses.

1. Trust good character more than promises.
2. Do not speak falsely.
3. Do good things.
4. Do not be hasty in making friends, but do not abandon them once made.
5. Learn to obey before you command.
6. When giving advice, do not recommend what is most pleasing, but what is most useful.
7. Make reason your supreme commander.
8. Do not associate with people who do bad things.
9. Honor the gods.
10. Have regard for your parents.

There is but one that might give a secularist pause: Solon's commandment to honor the gods (in the Greek, timaô, "to honor, to revere, to pay due regard"). Yet when we compare it to the similar First Three Commandments of Moses, we see how much more Solon's single religious commandment can be made to suit our society and our civic ideals: it does not have to restrict religious freedom, for it does not demand that we believe in anyone's god or follow anyone's religious rules. It remains in the appropriate plural. Solon asks us to give the plethora of gods the regard that they are due, and we can say that some gods are not due much--such as the racist gods and gods of hellfire. In the end, it is good to be respectful of the gods of others, which we can do even if we are criticizing them, even if we disbelieve in them. This would remain true to our most prized American ethic of religious liberty and civility. Though it might better be rendered now, "Respect the religions of others," there is something fitting in admitting that there are many gods, the many that people invent and hope for.

It is clear then, that if anyone's commandments ought to be posted on school and courthouse walls, it should be Solon's. He has more right as the founder of our civic ideals, and as a more profound and almost modern moral thinker. His commandments are more befitting our civil society, more representative of what we really believe and what we cherish in our laws and economy. And indeed, in the end, they are essentially secular. Is it an accident that when Solon's ideals reigned, there grew democracies and civil rights, and ideals we now consider fundamental to modern Western society, yet when the ideals of Moses replaced them, we had a thousand years of oppression, darkness, and tyranny? Is it coincidence that when the ideals of Moses were replaced with those of Solon, when men decided to fight and die not for the Ten Commandments but for the resurrection of Athenian civil society, we ended up with the great Democratic Revolutions and the social and legal structures that we now take for granted as the height and glory of human achievement and moral goodness? I think we owe our thanks to Solon. Moses did nothing for us--his laws were neither original nor significant in comparison. When people cry for the hanging of the Ten Commandments of Moses on school and court walls, I am astonished. Solon's Ten Commandments have far more right to hang in those places than those of Moses. The Athenian's Commandments are far more noble and profound, and far more appropriate to a free society. Who would have guessed this of a pagan? Maybe everyone of sense.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/carrier2.html

Knowledge, it's a good thing.

Julie

[Isome]

5. You are DEAD ON on this one.

Our natural compassion as left-leaners has told us this since the beginning of time, and we've told them that since the beginning of time.

Take out the religion and it would be a great idea. Leave the religion in and that's fine, too. But, make sure the Muslims can begin a faith-based rehabilitation program, the Buddhists, the Wiccans, etc., etc.

[elperromagico]

6. Why not put the Ten Commandments up in prisons?

Conservatives claim putting them up in schools would stop school shootings, why wouldn't it produce rehabilitation in prisons? Surely hardened criminals would turn away from crime if they had a big ol' Ten Commandments sign to look at in the dining area.

Sorry, I'm in a bad mood. :P

[ClintonTyree]

8. The Republicons............

are going to shove this faith based crap down our throats if we like it or not.
Governor Jebediah Bush is known for ignoring the will of the people, and pushing his own twisted agenda. The voters passed a resolution on a bullet train between Tampa and Orlando, Jebbie doesn't like it and has used every every trick in the book to keep it from fruition.
The voters passed a resolution for class size containment. Jebediah doesn't like it, and he's done everything in his power to subvert this initiative of the people as well.
You see, it doesn't MATTER what the people want, Jebediah knows what's best for everybody and they'd damn well better listen or there will be hell to pay.
Bush's aren't used to hearing the word, NO. They're spoiled, egocentric idiots borne of the manor. How the hell this state ever re-elected this moron escapes me. I guess one must consider the educational system in Florida to truly understand the answer to that question. They're always at the end of the list in education spending and believe me, it shows.

[elperromagico]

9. You do know his first name is John, don't you?

JK

[ClintonTyree]

11. John.............

doesn't fit the image I'm trying to portray, Jebediah has a more cynical image.

[mebadgett]

10. OPIATE OF THE MASSES

February 5 - 11, 2003
The Village Voice
Letters: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0306/letters.php



OPIATE OF THE MASSES


Erik Baard's "The Guilt-Free Soldier" warns about the latest breakthrough in psychopharmacology, a pill that dissolves the moral sense: "Every value he learned as a boy tells him to back down, to return to base and find another way of routing the enemy. Or, he reasons, he could complete the task and rush back to start popping pills that can, over the course of two weeks, immunize him against a lifetime of crushing remorse."

This piece of pharmaco-mythology, characteristic of our age, is extraordinarily naive. Drugs act on the body, not our moral sense. Scientists will never develop a drug that will annul our moral sense. Nor need they do so. Such a drug was discovered thousands of years ago and has been successfully used by people everywhere: It is called "religion." Clergymen confidently assure combatants on all sides-Israelis and Palestinians, Americans and Iraqis-that God is on their side. This has successfully tranquilized billions throughout history and there is no evidence that the power of this "drug" is waning. To the contrary, it is becoming more powerful before our very eyes.


Thomas Szasz, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus
Upstate Medical University
State University of New York, Syracuse



Source: http://www.szasz.com/szaszwri.html

Thomas Szasz: http://www.szasz.com/index.html

[pistoff democrat]

14. Yes, and now a supportive paragraph from Mr. Bob Dylan:

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

[coda]

19. Good article in this month's Mother Jones.

Jails for Jesus


President Bush wants faith-based programs to take over social services. But what happens when evangelical Christians try their hand at running prisons?

By Samantha M. Shapiro

November/December 2003 Issue


Innerchange Freedom Initiative
Prison Fellowship Ministries
Report on Gov. Bush's faith-based initiatives from the Texas Freedom Network



Pastor Don Raymond isn't trained in corrections and is not employed by the government, but he runs a new 140-person wing of the Ellsworth, Kansas, medium-security prison that draws inmates from throughout the state system.

In the phylum of prison staff, Raymond defies classification. He is not a tight-lipped warden, vindictive guard, or burnt-out social worker. In an industry that thrives on invisibility and resents the media, Raymond drives 140 miles, past newly seeded wheat fields and the rhythmically bowing heads of oil-well pumps, to pick me up from the airport, where he offers prayers of thanksgiving for my visit and "for the ministries of writing He has blessed Samantha with." In a building that hums with hostility, Raymond is attentive, unguarded, gentle. Prison staff are not permitted to share personal information with inmates, address them by their first names, or socialize in any way; if an inmate wants to speak privately with a counselor, he has to fill out a Form-9. But these restrictions do not apply to Raymond, who often puts in 14-hour days working the cellblocks of the state's prisons, recruiting men to transfer to his wing. In inmates' marked bodies, averted eyes, and bristling rage, Raymond sees the debts and wounds, not of poverty or addiction, but of sin alone. He believes there is only one cure -- Jesus Christ -- and that it is a perfect and complete cure.

Once at the Ellsworth prison, Raymond and I quickly pass through the general population area, avoiding the acid attention of men slouched in front of bolted-down TVs, fingering the buttons of their state-issue work shirts. "I seeeeee you," an inmate coos at me through his window grate as we pass. "Don't think I can't see you." "I got to talk to you, girl! I got to talk to you right now!" another barks.


<snip>


Aided by friends in high places -- such as the White House -- legislators in Kansas, Iowa, Texas, and Minnesota have, in the last six years, turned over portions of their prisons, and corrections budgets, to the politically powerful evangelical Christian group, Prison Fellowship Ministries, which pays Raymond's salary. The largest prison ministry in the world, PFM sends more than 50,000 volunteers into prisons in every state with the goal of "declaring the good news of Jesus Christ to those impacted by crime." The Ministries' "Angel Tree" program has presented more than 4 million children of inmates with Christmas presents and evangelistic materials. The goal is clear. As Mark Earley, who was attorney general of Virginia before becoming president of PFM in 2002, writes on its website, "I believe God is going to raise up the next generation of leaders for His Church from men and women now behind bars, and from their children."





http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/11/ma_561_01.html