RICHMOND, Texas — Killer-turned-artist Manny Hernandez on the prison where he’s finishing an eight-year term: “It’s a blessing to be here.”
Fellow murderer and inmate Raymond Hall likens it to heaven.
“I love this place,” says their warden, Cynthia Tilley. “It’s so calm.”
They’re praising the Carol Vance Unit, founded in 1997 on the outskirts of Houston. It’s the oldest of a rapidly growing number of faith-based prison facilities across the nation.
Even as they proliferate, fueled by the fervor of devout volunteers, these programs are often criticized. Evidence that they reduce recidivism is inconclusive, and skeptics question whether the prevailing evangelical tone of the units discriminates against inmates who don’t share their conservative Christian outlook.
However, evidence is strong that violence and trouble-making drop sharply in these programs, and they often are the only vibrant rehabilitation option at a time when taxpayer-funded alternatives have been cut back.
Inmates at Vance offer another compelling argument. Unlike many of America’s 2 million prisoners, they feel they are treated with respect. They have hope.
“A bunch of cats in prison, they never had anyone show them love — even their mother and father,” said Anzetta Smith, who served 18 years for attempted murder before graduating from Vance this year. “You get in the program, and everybody shows you love.”
Impressed by the Vance operation, Texas officials have opened a dozen faith-based dorms elsewhere in the state, accommodating some 1,300 inmates. At one dorm, at the maximum-security Allred prison near Wichita Falls, infractions by the inmates dropped more than 90 percent once they entered the program.
At Vance, a minimum-security prison, fights among inmates are rare, said Tommie Dorsett, a former parole officer who has directed the unit’s Christian-based InnerChange Freedom Initiative since its inception.
He could recall only one incident in those 10 years when a correctional officer used force. “And that officer overreacted,” Dorsett said.
Security at Vance is the state’s responsibility. But the intensive, daylong programming is entirely in the hands of InnerChange, a project of the Prison Fellowship ministry founded by Chuck Colson, the former Nixon aide imprisoned because of the Watergate scandal.
Vance and eight other InnerChange programs in Kansas, Minnesota, Arkansas, Missouri and Iowa operate on the strength of Prison Fellowship’s private financial resources and legions of volunteers.
In Florida, by contrast, the Department of Corrections has taken a more direct role, transforming three prisons — two for men, one for women — into “faith and character-based institutions” which it runs itself. The department says inmates at the three prisons committed 30 percent fewer infractions than comparable inmates elsewhere. A state task force recommended creating five more faith-based facilities.
The InnerChange program at Vance is open, on a voluntary basis, to men with less than two years left on their sentences. Sex offenders and inmates with bad disciplinary records are excluded. The days are filled with spiritual and academic classes, community meetings and work duties.
Bibles are a common sight on the bedside tables in the inmates’ cubicles. Religious paintings decorate the walls.
Tilley, the warden, said the security staff is asked to treat the inmates politely. The atmosphere can be a pleasant shock to men arriving from tougher prisons.
“In my other prison, on a daily basis there was rape, drugs,” said Hall, who was convicted at 16 of murder and hopes to complete his 15-year sentence in early 2009. “When you come to Carol Vance, it’s like a load is lifted. It’s like heaven.”
Hall had just completed a class where readings included Bible passages and pastor Rick Warren’s best-seller, “The Purpose Driven Life.”
The instructor, Doug Jeffrey, urged the men to focus on using their resources — family, faith, education — to plan for succeeding when they go free.
“When you got accepted for this program, maybe that was the first time you realized God has a plan for you,” Jeffrey said. “You guys are a chosen nation. You go out from prison with a different mindset from guys not in this program.”
Each inmate is assigned a volunteer mentor who provides counseling before and after release, assisting with job hunting and housing. Outgoing inmates are feted at a graduation ceremony, then leave the prison with their mentor.
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