Faith-Based Prison Program's Success Questioned

Faith-Based Prison Program's Success Questioned
By ORI NIR
FORWARD STAFF

Washington — A recent study that was widely presented as documenting the success of an all-Christian rehabilitation program in a Texas state prison — and serving as proof that the Bush administration-backed programs should be expanded — actually shows that the program is a failure.

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Following the study's publication, IFI founder Chuck Colson, who was White House counsel under former president Nixon and spent seven months in prison for his part in the Watergate affair, met in the White House with President Bush, and was warmly praised for his apparent success by the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Jim Towey.

Last week, however, in an article published by the Internet news magazine Slate, UCLA social studies professor Mark A.R. Kleiman pointed out that the study does not exactly live up to this claim. In fact, prisoners who enrolled in the program were not better rehabilitated than those who didn't; only prisoners who went on to graduate from the program — a minority (75 out of 177) — did better.

"Graduation involved sticking with the program, not only in prison but after release," Kleiman wrote, "Naturally, the graduates did better than the control group.... the InnerChange cheerleaders simply ignored the other 102 participants who dropped out, were kicked out, or got early parole and didn't finish. Naturally, the non-graduates did worse than the control group. If you select out the winners, you leave mostly losers."

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http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.08.15/news9.html

I immediately think RIP-OFF.