TREATMENT FOR PRISONERS DRAWS FIRE OVER SCIENTOLOGY

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Last November, in a cedar sauna cranked up to
160 degrees, a crowd of sweaty men read books and chatted amid
mariachi music. They emerged to nibble from a tray of raw vegetables
or take shots of olive oil. This is not a spa. This is Second Chance,
one of the country's most unusual alternatives to the nation's prison systems.

Founded by a Scientologist and former real-estate developer -- and
funded partly by federal tax dollars -- Second Chance is a treatment
program for nonviolent prisoners with substance-abuse problems. It is
based on principles of L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Scientology
religion, who argued that toxins from drugs and pesticides accumulate
in the body's fatty tissues, making it difficult for addicts to kick
their habit. Saunas and vitamins are intended to purge these residues.

Facing few options for successful long-term ways to treat criminal
defendants with serious drug problems, 24 of New Mexico's 84 district
judges have sentenced more than 50 prisoners to terms at Second
Chance. Even before it opened its doors to inmates last September,
Second Chance and its unconventional methods had ignited a
controversy in New Mexico's legal community. At the center of the
debate are two former friends and sometime adversaries. William Lang,
chief district judge in the area that includes Albuquerque, doesn't
want his colleagues to sentence inmates to Second Chance. On the
other side is Judge Lang's predecessor, W. John Brennan, who was
hired by Second Chance to convince judges to do just that. "There's a
dire need for a secure residential facility for defendants with
substance-abuse problems," says District Judge Ross Sanchez. He has
sent three inmates to Second Chance, where the minimum stay is six
months. 'Highly Suspicious' But Judge Lang says he is "highly
suspicious" of the program. "If it is connected to Scientology, just
say so," he says. Second Chance officials and a spokeswoman for the
Church of Scientology say there are no ties. For most of his 25-year
career, Mr. Brennan was a highly respected member of the legal community.

He and Judge Lang were close; Mr. Brennan presided over Judge Lang's
wedding 18 years ago. But the men had a falling out in 2002, when
Judge Lang unsuccessfully attempted to gather enough votes from
judges to unseat Judge Brennan.

Then, late one night in May 2004, Judge Brennan was arrested.

Within four months he had resigned as judge and pleaded guilty to
drunk driving and cocaine possession. He was sentenced to a year's probation.

Judge Lang assumed Mr. Brennan's post as chief judge of New Mexico's
Second Judicial District. Now a consultant for Second Chance, Mr.
Brennan believes that Judge Lang is cool toward the program because
of his personal grudges. "I think it has to do with me," says Mr.
Brennan, who lobbies judges to send convicts to Second Chance. "I
don't think it has to do with the program." He adds Judge Lang's own
battle with alcoholism makes him skeptical of unorthodox treatment
programs. Judge Lang, who attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, says
personal grudges have nothing to do with his skepticism about Second
Chance. Judge Lang says he believes funding for treatment should go
to existing programs that have a track record. Now the $350,000 in
federal funds granted to Second Chance is running out. Last month Mr.
Brennan appeared with one state representative before New Mexico's
Legislative Finance Committee and asked for $3.6 million for the
program. Second Chance is the brainchild of Rick Pendery, a former
real-estate developer who says he has spent decades studying world
religions with a focus on the writings of Mr. Hubbard. In 1995 Mr.
Pendery opened the first Second Chance program in Ensenada, Mexico,
using his own money and funds from the Mexican government. His first
attempts to open a program in the U.S. failed. Then in 2002, Mr.
Pendery gave a presentation on Second Chance to a conference of women
legislators in San Diego and took about 60 of them to Ensenada. Anna
Crook, a Republican state legislator from New Mexico, came away
impressed, she says. Ms. Crook asked New Mexico's Department of
Corrections to work with Second Chance to establish a pilot project.

The department declined because Second Chance isn't a "good fit,"
according to a spokeswoman. Undeterred, Ms. Crook says she then went
to Washington and secured $350,000 for Second Chance from the 2004
appropriations bill.

With federal funds approved, Mr. Pendery says the "overwhelming
majority" of the remaining $300,000 needed to start Second Chance
came from businessman Randall Suggs, a Scientologist who owns a stake
in the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team. The state of New Mexico
later allocated $300,000. Mr. Suggs didn't return phone calls.
Another Challenge Second Chance's next challenge was to persuade
judges to send addicts convicted of either misdemeanors or felonies
to the program.

In September 2005, Mr. Pendery approached Mr. Brennan, who had
recently returned from two months of rehabilitation at the Betty Ford
Center. Mr. Brennan wanted to get back into the criminal-justice
field, but says he initially wasn't sure what Scientology was. After
trying some of the Second Chance treatments himself, Mr. Brennan was
sold and signed on. "In the back of my mind I thought five years down
the line, if this works, I'll have some sort of public redemption,"
he says. In August 2006, Mr. Brennan was scheduled to make a
presentation about Second Chance to a panel of New Mexico criminal judges.

Judge Lang made his opposition clear. "I suggested it would probably
not be a good idea" for Mr. Brennan to give the presentation, says
Mr. Lang. "The whole pall that [the arrest] cast over the court, and
the great cloud of suspicion, had not completely lifted." Ultimately,
Mr. Brennan didn't make the presentation. He says he was told Judge
Lang didn't want him entering the courthouse, an account Judge Lang
disputes. Last summer, Judge Lang cautioned many of New Mexico's
district judges and Kari Brandenburg, district attorney for the
Second Judicial District, about the program, he says. Ms. Brandenburg
argues any kind of treatment -- however unusual -- is better than no
treatment at all. "We need to have an open mind," she says. "If it
doesn't work we'll get rid of it." The center received its first
inmate in September. Currently, about half of the inmates who are
qualified to go to Second Chance ultimately go to the program, Mr.
Brennan says. Still, some judges are balking. "I'm not ordering or
sentencing anybody to that program at this time," said Judge Denise
Barela Shepherd at a Nov. 8 hearing where she sentenced a probation
violator to prison instead.

In an interview, Ms. Shepherd said there isn't enough evidence for
her to conclude the program works. Mr. Hubbard's principles have been
taken to prisons before.

For many years a program called Criminon, also based on Mr. Hubbard's
teachings, has operated drug-intervention programs in jails.

But Second Chance represents the first time in the U.S. that an
incarceration facility has been designed around Mr. Hubbard's
methods, which involve not just behavioral treatments but saunas and
specific diets as well. Located on a tumbleweed-strewn patch of
desert, Second Chance's cement structure is ringed by a chain-link
fence topped with barbed wire. Inside, linoleum hallways give way to
an open dormitory.

A nearby room houses the sauna, which is used by every inmate for a
four-week period, five hours a day. Inmates eat organic beef. They
choose from an array of vitamins to ingest, including potassium pills
if they're feeling dizzy, or bioplasma pills to offset salt depletion.

Inmates addicted to heroin can get a massage, called a "nerve
assist," from another inmate.

Scientologists believe nerve assists help drugs depart the body. In
addition to saunas and specific diets, Second Chance focuses on
helping inmates communicate more effectively, on the belief that
better communication skills will reduce offenders' need to act out in
negative ways. One recent morning, Vincent Gutierrez, 29 years old,
who has been in and out of jail for drug use since age 13, sat with a
group of other inmates working on a series of communication drills
that are also based on techniques developed by Mr. Hubbard.
Bull-Baiting One drill, called bull-baiting, is designed to help
participants learn how to tolerate verbal assaults.

Mr. Gutierrez stared into the eyes of another inmate stationed three
feet away. As his partner yelled scripted statements at him like "You
look like a frog!" Mr. Gutierrez was supposed to remain impassive.
Another drill has inmates sit opposite each other, look each other in
the eye and read lines from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Mr.
Gutierrez says the drills have helped him "figure it out the positive
way instead of using my knuckles." Mr. Pendery says that by
addressing the root causes of drug abuse, his program reduces the
number of inmates who return to jail after being released. He says a
study shows that the Second Chance program in Ensenada resulted in a
drop in recidivism rates to 10% from 83% over a six-year period. The
Mexico program recently closed its doors after losing its government
funding, he says. Advocates say Second Chance also saves money
because it doesn't require maximum-security guards and doesn't
administer pharmaceutical drugs.

It costs about $55 a day for one inmate in the Second Chance program,
compared with about $70 a day for an inmate at the county jail. Bill
Miller, an addiction expert and a retired professor of psychiatry at
the University of New Mexico, reviewed Second Chance at the request
of the city of Albuquerque. "There's a lot of use of sauna with the
idea that you sweat out toxins in the system.

I don't know of any scientific basis for that," he says. "It wasn't
clear to me what sort of scientific basis there was even for the
conception of the program to begin with." Does it work? "Basically we
just don't know," he says.