WASHINGTON (ABP) — A church-state watchdog group maintains a Christian prison proposed in Oklahoma probably would be unconstitutional. But the Baptist minister who hopes to open the nation’s first faith-based prison says he is confident it will pass constitutional muster.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State wrote the Oklahoma Department of Corrections advising the state not to send prisoners to what would be the first all-Christian prison in the country.
Bill Robinson, founder of Corrections Concepts Inc., the non-profit company spearheading the project, responded with a 2005 legal opinion by the American Center for Law and Justice. It said the program is constitutional and in line with President Bush’s 2002 executive order allowing faith-based providers of social services to compete with government or secular programs on a level playing field. The ACLJ is a conservative group founded by the evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson.
Formerly best known as the town used for filming the 1996 movie Twister, Wakita, Okla., has been back in the news lately with town leaders supporting the building of a 600-bed facility for men nearing the end of their prison terms.
Habilitation House would hire only Christian administrators, employees, counselors and programs. “Residents,” as the inmates would be called after their arrival, would be encouraged — but not required — to attend worship services.
Robinson argues that instilling a faith-based work ethic that emphasizes personal responsibility and provides income for family support and restitution and marketable job skills is more likely than traditional prison to return an offender to society as a law-abiding citizen.
Americans United, however, said the concept inevitably would result in indoctrination, and funding it with taxpayer dollars would represent an establishment of religion forbidden by the First Amendment.
“It is wrong for government to take taxpayers’ money and spend it on religious indoctrination,” said Barry Lynn, the group’s executive director. “That’s a violation of the fundamental rights of every American.”
Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, said he believes strongly inmates should have access to religious services of their choosing, “but government should never favor one faith over others or coerce inmates to participate in religion.”
Robinson has pitched his “faith-based work-ethic corrections” philosophy to several communities over the years without success.
A native of Shreveport, La., Robinson served seven-and-a-half years in prison for white-collar crimes in the 1960s. He professed faith in Christ in the early 1980s and felt called into prison ministry in 1984.
Robinson first proposed to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 1995 that he use a little-known federal Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program, implemented in 1979, to promote Corrections Concepts Inc. as a faith-based initiative.
Bush responded by appointing a 16-member task force to study how the government could expand its ability to fund social services through churches and other faith-based organizations.
After Bush became president in 2001, the idea inspired by Habilitation House moved to Washington, where the faith-based initiative became a centerpiece of Bush’s domestic agenda.
Robinson continued to promote his idea. Several communities expressed interest, only to back out for political reasons or questions about whether the plan was financially viable.
“It took God six days to create the universe,” Robinson said. “It’s taken 24 years to work with the criminal-justice system.”
Attorney John Sheedy, who has represented cities negotiating with Robinson, was quoted as saying that Satan does not want the project to succeed.
City fathers in Wakita, a community of 380 residents 35 miles north of Enid, Okla., have most recently expressed support for the idea, saying it would create jobs and help reduce recidivism.
“If Chicken Little doesn’t come to town, we’ll be open in 16 months,” Robinson said recently in the Tulsa World.
Maybe not, according to Americans United, who noted a federal court already has struck down a similar program as a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
In 2007 the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a Prison Fellowship inmate program in Iowa had “the effect of advancing or endorsing religion” and that the per-diem method of state funding comprised unconstitutional direct aid to a religious organization.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.