The old "I found Jesus in prison" is a familiar refrain for shortening one's sentence. Now, the new angle is "go to church, forego prison." What a bargain, if you can stomach all that.
The link below takes you to an article about a church offering rehab and escape from sentencing. Now, with the administration's funding of faith-based initiatives, the program can get even more money.
Of course, government funding of religious programs is essentially government sponsorship of religion. Some of us understand why that's a slippery slope, and why prohibition was specially written into the constitution. HINT: The pilgrims came to North America to escape governments who sponsored specific religions that weren't the ones the pilgrims happened to believe in.
I'd like to make two comments about this article, its subject, and the comments people make in response to the article.
First of all, religious institutions are uniquely positioned to deal with some issues. Take the wayward person who chooses church instead of prison. Essentially, that person needs a group of people to monitor them and help them steer clear of unproductive behavior. Unfortunately, a counselor working office hours, which is the state-sponsored method, doesn't quite provide the support a person needs 24/7. A group of people through a church can be more proactive. So the churches can tout how superior they are to government programs. Twelve-step programs ARE religious, though there is an alternative called Rational Recovery. I can't vouch for any of these, since I haven't had these issues.
The second point I want to make is that you should take the time to read the COMMENTS posted online in response to this story. What is blatantly obvious in these comments is that there are MANY people out there who are so immersed in the religious mindset, that they can't fathom what " separation of church and state" actually means other than "godless commies going hell in a handbasket." To these people, even a, say, a MORMON would be preferable to having an atheist or civil libertarian for president.
So here it is... if our country is to truly embrace its founding principles of separation of church and state, then the secular community must come up with programs to compete with human services provided by the religious community:
Evansville Church offers prison alternative
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That was an entertaining comments section. As an Evansvillian (Indiana) myself, I too found the abbreviation "EV" confusing in the article's headline. Amusingly, among the 11 comments posted, this "EV = Evansville" issue took up more than half of them.
But about the comments that were actually about this faith-based prison alternative. This one really bent my brain:
"Without much concern that I'll be wrong, I predict that these types of programs will be terminated due to the overt religious components. Either the athiests will freak out that people are being helped by religion at less cost than the ineffective prisons, or some Muslim will scream for his right to be treated in Mosque.
"Warehousing in prisons fails. The only consistently successful programs are those based in faith."
Where to start? How about: mosques are faith-based, no? If this commenter's great criterion is that the program be effective, what does he care which faith we're talking about?
--But so here I am, an atheist who's terrifically upset about our ineffective prisons. At the same time, I wonder how effective this faith-based program really is, since it has apparently chosen to treat a very selective population: 48 "graduates" in seven years, and 78 current clients. Is this the entire nonviolent offender population of "EV" since 2000? What criteria did this church consortium use to pick the clients they did? And is our tax money being spent to help reclaim troubled people... or just troubled people who can holler, "Hallelujah!" on cue when their backs are to the wall?
Like the commenter, I am concerned that our tax money go to the most effective solution - and this commenter and I agree that that isn't prison. But I question the railroaded conclusion that a non-transparent, Christian-specific program treating a relatively infinitesimal number of people is somehow the answer to our social ills, and a wise use of my taxes.
And by the way, are they treating anybody but drug offenders in this program? The article doesn't give much reason to think so.
Anyway, I question whether a mirror organization of Humanists would do the trick. In this case, I think what we'd best do is simply decriminalize the practice of getting high. Imprisoning people for such an offense (and who's offended, again?) is (a) godawfully expensive, and (b) utterly pointless, since the deterrent factor is minute.
Oh, yes, and it's (c) inhuman.
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