Faith works; that's a fact

By ALLISON DEFOOR
Published January 19, 2008

In your editorial Pushing religion in prisonsof Jan. 8, you are correct that there are lessons to be drawn in Florida from the failed example in Iowa. The principal lesson is that Florida has designed its approach with an entirely different model, one that meets constitutional muster by being based upon volunteers and not state dollars. The approach is called Faith- and Character-based, and it works.

Contrary to your editorial, there is a growing body of data to support this contention. Your editorial is correct that there are other, secular, tools that can be used to reduce recidivism rates. But reduce them we must. This year, Florida will release 12,000 prisoners. If we have the traditional recidivism rate of 33 percent, within three years this will put 12,000 prisoners back into the system. This will require building two new 2,000-person prisons. The cost to the taxpayers, not counting losses due to the crimes themselves, will be $100-million each to build and $30-million annually to operate.

First, to my bona fides. I have been about everything that one can be in the criminal justice system: an assistant public defender, prosecutor, county judge, circuit judge, AV-rated private attorney and member of the Board of Governors of the Florida Bar. I taught litigation for 15 years at the University of Miami Law School, and have published 30 professional journal articles and 10 books. I was sheriff of Monroe County, and as such built and ran a jail.Finally, I am a priest doing prison chaplain work in the Episcopal Church. I know this beast called the criminal justice system.

I will address what works and doesn't work, then the constitutional issue.

After 35 years in the criminal justice system, I have come to the conclusion that the methods that we normally deploy do not work. As evidence, I point to the revolving door that has a 33 percent recidivism rate in years one through three, and more than 50 percent beyond year three. Any business with a failure rate like that would be closed.

I have come to conclude that 85 percent of those I saw go through the courts in which I practiced could be remediated by one or more of three things: substance abuse treatment, literacy and educational instruction, and stimulating in the prisoners a value structure that values something outside themselves (it can, but need not be, religious; it could be the arts, etc.). The data support my views. According to Florida DOC, substance abuse treatment results in a 44 percent reduction in recidivism; every grade improvement in reading drops the rate by 4 percent, and the data for the Faith- and Character-based programs show a recidivism rate in the single digits. We now have well over five years of data on prisoners who have left Faith- and Character-based institutions. At Wakulla Correctional Institution, where I work on many Sundays, it is 7 percent, based on three years of data.

The legal issues associated with Faith- and Character-based prisons have been carefully addressed. The approach has received the attention of the ACLU in Florida but not its opposition. Fundamentally, no state money is being used to advance a particular religion. First, one must start with the legal certainty that prisoners have a constitutional right to practice their faith. That is why chaplains are in the system (including one imam).The case law has gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and upheld this principle.

The Faith- and Character-based institutions allow anyone, secular or religious, who thinks that he or she can make prisoners better to come in, and if they draw a crowd and so choose, to come back. The volunteer list at Wakulla CI includes Catholics and Muslims, but also Wiccans. It includes the Toastmasters (secular) and the various 12-step programs (spiritual, but not religious). The staffing is all done by volunteers. The state maintains security, including volunteer credentialing. Thus, it is a menu plan, using volunteer labor, and having no compulsion. It is my legal opinion that it thus passes constitutional muster, even under Florida's very explicit provision. Indeed, I would assert that these programs, now that their efficacy and lack of security threat have been clearly demonstrated, may well have entered the realm of being constitutionally protected.

With these facts in mind, Florida would be crazy not to expand its Faith- and Character-based prison program, particularly with a 6,000-person waiting list. Whether or not there is a God is a matter of faith. That the traditional approach in Florida corrections is bankrupt, and will bankrupt us all as well, is a matter of fact.

The Rev. Allison DeFoor is an Episcopal priest who lives in Wakulla Springs.

[Last modified January 18, 2008, 22:36:56]