Faith healing

Public Interest, Spring, 2004 by Joseph Loconte

Given First Amendment concerns, vouchers may be the safest way to fund conversion-based programs. Under Charitable Choice, even "pervasively sectarian" groups could take the money without separating the secular and spiritual parts of their services. The idea may get a boost from a federal appeals court ruling last April that allowed Wisconsin to offer vouchers for drug treatment at Faith Works, a Christian rehabilitation program. Many church-state experts believe the 2002 Supreme Court decision upholding public vouchers for religious schools makes possible the same approach throughout government social services.

It is unclear, however, what conditions might be attached to the money. Faith-based groups are sure to face pressures, for example, to meet state licensing rules for drug treatment and credentialing requirements for counselors (only about 5 percent of all Teen Challenge centers are licensed to provide drug rehabilitation). In addition, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has approved regulations encouraging religious providers to offer treatment, but only if participants can opt out of the religious parts of the program. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, promises to go to court to stop the initiative. "People with addiction problems need medical help, not Sunday school," he says.

The Bush administration is also pushing prison initiatives to engage religious groups in the lives of inmates and their families. The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative is touted as a "new way of doing business" among federal agencies and state and local partners addressing the crime problem. Under the $300 million plan, federal agencies are making available grants to prod states to develop reentry programs with legs. Last year Congress approved nearly $10 million for Bush's Mentoring Children of Prisoners program, and this year's budget includes another $150 million for disadvantaged youth, targeting the 1.5 million kids with a parent in prison. "Some of these men can become responsible fathers," says Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, "but it's going to take time, hard work, and lots of help from community and faith-based organizations."

Meanwhile, the Prison Fellowship model continues to generate interest. Earlier this year, Florida governor Jeb Bush opened a faith-based prison at Lawtey Correctional Institution. The facility, which can accommodate nearly 800 inmates, appears to be the first of its kind: an attempt to saturate an entire prison population of willing volunteers with religious programming--Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and other faith traditions. "If the courts don't create further obstacles," Colson says, "then I think you'll see a profound change in the way we deal with social problems in this country."

A constitutional showdown over Prison Fellowship seems inevitable. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed two lawsuits last year to block public funding for the IFI program at the Newton Correctional Facility in Iowa. The state covers about 40 percent of the costs of the $500,000 initiative. The suit alleges that participants receive a litany of special privileges when they sign up. The prison facility that houses the program, for example, has bathrooms with walled partitions and cells that can be locked by inmates. Other inducements cited in the complaint include free religious articles, additional and different clothing, access to musical instruments and three-ring binders. According to the suit, all of this "creates incentives for inmates to undertake religious indoctrination."