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A Pearl in the Desert
While it was my pleasure to serve for nearly 2 years as a Chaplain at Maine State Prison, I was forced to conclude that religious programming, while serving as an outlet for prisoners and as a strengthening force in their daily lives, has limited value in developing the kind of life skills that serve the public’s interest in rehabilitation of criminals. The data offers little encouragement that religious programming in prisons reduces recidivism, defined by most as “re-arrest, re-conviction and re-incarceration” measured over a period of a minimum of 3 years.
Prisoners refer to religious programming as “Jesus in the lobby.” You meet Him on the way in and say “goodbye” to Him on the way out with little evidence of life-altering faith. There are, of course, notable exceptions not only through Christian faith but other faiths.
I turned my attention to a political concern – how to reduce recidivism and cut the enormous cost and human waste of incarceration. I found that recidivism could be reduced from 60% down to around 10% with a 6-month re-entry program that included 4 elements: housing, mentoring, job training and drug and alcohol treatment. Two of those elements are very evident in Maine’s prison system – job training and drug and alcohol treatment. Alone, however, such noble efforts cannot produce impressive results.
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