If you have not visited the FCBI website lately, you should. The White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (FBCI) has been hard at work:

The Administration has eliminated regulatory and policy barriers that have kept faith-based organizations from partnering with the Federal government to help Americans in need. It has also worked to put into place regulations to ensure that faith-based organizations are able to compete on an equal footing for Federal funding within constitutional guidelines, without impairing the religious character of such organizations and without diminishing the religious freedom of beneficiaries.

Among its targets are prisoners and their families.

In January 2004, President Bush proposed a four-year, $300 million initiative to reduce recidivism and help returning inmates contribute to their communities. This year, more than 600,000 inmates will be released from prison, and studies show that approximately two-thirds will likely be rearrested within three years of release. The initiative will harness the resources and experience of faith-based and community organizations in providing newly released prisoners with job training and placement services, transitional housing, and voluntary mentoring support.

Although they operate out of the public eye, these programs have not been without controversy and competitors. A lawsuit was filed earlier this year by two civil liberties groups against adding religious activities to a state-sponsored prison vocational program. Links to this and related stories, are here.

Alternatives to Faith-Based Programs

We all know that there is a high rate of incarceration and that prisoners are likely to re-offend and return to prison. Through the centuries, efforts have been made to change this dynamic through vengeance against those who offend society, punishment to promote outer change, isolation to protect the public, and rehabilitation to promote inner change. Faith-based programs fall into the latter category.

But so do other programs, including a program called Changing Lives Through Literature.

In a recent article, not available on-line, Lawrence T. Jablecki, writes:

Faith-based programs aren't the only or best ways to integrate ex-cons into society. There are rational alternatives with proven records of success that simply need to be used.

You can read about Jablecki's experiences and views in his work in Texas through the Changing Lives Through Literature - An Alternative Sentencing Program. advocates a different approach to dealing with prisoners.

In his Address to the Houston Philosophical Society: Changing Lives Through Literature, Jablecki goes on to say:

Criminal offenders are in conflict with the norms of society; they are not suffering from psychological disorders that both explain and excuse their conduct. They have consciously and deliberately chosen to commit a crime, or, in numerous cases, they consciously and deliberately set themselves up for committing a crime by altering their normal mental and physical capacities. They were free to do otherwise and should be held responsible.

I am not advocating an insensitive and unmerciful punishment of criminal offenders, many of whom have very real and serious psychological problems. In numerous cases, their conduct and degree of personal happiness have been adversely affected by poverty, lack of education and job skills, peer pressure, racial discrimination, broken homes, physical or sexual abuse, drug addiction, and alcoholism.

. . .

Now that I have told our secret - criminals cannot be rehabilitated - the question is, what (if anything) can be done to change them? We should use every available resource to assist in the process of "habilitation"- in other words, a civilizing process in which they must voluntarily accept the responsibility for developing new habits of thinking and conduct.

Jablecki goes on to discuss the program in full, including study results. Well worth reading.

To learn about the Texas women's program, read this piece by Jill Carrol here.

More about the Program

Links to formal studies of the program are here.

A video clip of a student from the Texas Men's Program is here.

A video clip of a student from the Texas Women's Program is here.

And another talk by Jablecki is Prison Inmates Meet Socrates

• Jablecki
• prisoners