FAITH-BASED PRISON PROGRAMS CAN REDUCE RECIDIVISM RATES

Re: Carl Hiaasen's Jan. 4 column, Cons commit crimes in haste, now can
repent at Lawtey

I have spent my career in the criminal-justice realm.

I have put many persons in prison and have seen false (and real)
contrition. More than a decade ago, I was asked to visit crack addicts
whose addiction had been mastered by a faith-based program in Miami-
Dade County. Having seen not one individual freed from a crack
addiction, I skeptically went to Agape and met dozens of women who had
been freed through their faith and the programs offered to them.

Since then, I have seen prison-ministry programs developed through
Kairos Horizon, which facilitates a number of faith-based programs in
Florida prisons. Similar programs have spread to other states and the
federal prison system because they work. There are dramatically
different recidivism rates from these programs than in the general
prison population. That is the bottom line, because most prisoners
will be released.

Some of that success is statistically self-selected, in the sense that
someone inclined to enter such a program may be less likely to re-
offend. Not every individual is sincere, but the tolerance level for
falsity is much lower in a jail than the average church.

There are constitutional issues to be navigated by a state-owned
faith-based prison, but they have been navigated here and elsewhere.
This kind of program works better than merely holding someone in a
cell with more-experienced convicts to learn from and then releasing
him. Nothing will change criminal behavior faster or stronger than a
change of heart (the ''turning around'' of the Judeo-Christian
tradition, but common to most faiths), the same principle that has
worked well in the 12-step movement. The form of the change of heart
can take many expressions, which are recognized in faith-based
initiatives.

J. Allison DeFoor II

Tallahassee

(Editor's note: DeFoor, an attorney, earned a seminary degree from the
Florida Center for Theological Studies in Miami and has done prison
ministry at Wakulla Prison.)