Forgiveness, Repentance, and Faith-Based Prison Programs

In another response to the question about criminal punishment, forgiveness, and the state, MOJ friend Matt Donovan sends this Weekly Standard story about Sam Brownback, evangelical-turned-Catholic and potential 2008 presidential candidate, periodically giving a Bible study at a state prison (and spending a night in a cell) as part of the Inner Change Freedom Initiative.

Leaving Building 4, Brownback goes to the spacious (9,167 square feet) Spiritual Life Center, recently built to accommodate a growing inmate demand for religious programs. On its website, the Kansas Department of Corrections describes the center as providing "opportunities for inmates from diverse faiths to develop and restore relationships with God, their families, and crime victims." In a conference room, Brownback engages a dozen inmates in an hour-long conversation about their post-prison hopes. He tells one who calls him "Mr. Brownback" to change that to "Sam." And "Sam" it is. To another prisoner he says, "Your experience sounds like my own. You don't recognize temptation when you should." A prayer by Brownback closes the meeting, and then the senator retraces his steps to Building 4 and then to G-pod, cell 42, where, locked down, he spends the night.

You might not expect someone weighing a presidential run in 2008 to spend a dozen hours

in a state prison; it's not exactly the best place to go in search of campaign dollars or volunteers. But once you grasp Sam Brownback's political vision, his visit to the Ellsworth Correctional Facility seems less odd.

Earlier this year, Brownback gave a lecture at Kansas State, his alma mater. He chose as his topic "American exceptionalism"--the idea, as he explained it, that our country is a "special place" and that it has a "special destiny for mankind." Brownback said that the source of American exceptionalism lies in "our fundamental goodness," and that while we have had our problems and "often get things wrong," we eventually find our way, because "some movement based on goodness and fixing what's wrong" starts up and doesn't stop until the problem is fixed. Like the abolitionist movement, which settled in Kansas "with a heart to end slavery." And the civil rights movement, which sought to end segregation. Those movements, said Brownback, fought for "the inherent dignity" of every person, for "righteousness and justice." In our time, he continued, we must carry on this fight by reaching out to people who need help--"the poor and dispossessed," including prisoners and their families. We need to defend the dignity of people "no matter where they are, no matter what they look like, no matter what their status." And not just here at home. Brownback pointed to the sub-Saharan region of Africa, where he said 60 percent of the children have malaria; to Darfur, where the genocide continues; and to the Congo, where "an estimated 1,000 preventable deaths" occur every day.

I know that I'd disagree with a number of Brownback's political positions; and yes there are real constitutional questions if the Inner Change Freedom Initiative is the only or dominant life-transformation program in the prison.  But shouldn't everyone across the political spectrum recognize that it's unusual and valuable for a politician to care enough about prisoners to spend any time with them and to call attention to these so-often-forgotten people?  You sometimes hear critics refer to the most intensely religious Republicans -- Brownback, Rick Santorum -- as the "nut case" Republicans, in contrast to the moderates.  They're right: it is nutty to spend your time visiting prisoners who can't vote, or (in Santorum's case) to push against the business-lobby types that dominate the executive-branch roster of his party for more money for anti-poverty programs (that include faith-based or other personal-transformation emphases). 

Now the questions.  I'd like to put John McCullough, who asked about this topic originally and does good work with expunging criminal records and helping ex-prisoners, in conversation with Senator Brownback and see what the two say to each other.  I wonder what Brownback's position is on expungments of criminal records -- or on the laws that disenfranchise felons permanently or long after their sentence has ended.  My sense is that Brownback's party overall has had a pretty "non-compassionate" record of supporting the strictest and long-lasting disenfranchisement laws.  I also wonder what other kinds of social supports would be very helpful for ex-offenders -- job retraining etc. -- but face opposition from those on Brownback's side of the aisle who tend to be negative on social spending.  In his references to sub-Saharan Africa, Brownback implicitly recognizes the importance of material aid as well as personal transformation; does that show up in his budget priorities [addition here] in general, not just regarding Africa?

On the other hand, I imagine that the challenge Brownback might raise is to ask how we have confidence that repentance and personal transformation really have occurred in a person during prison.  Aren't efforts like the Inner Change Freedom Initiative -- assuming there are some secular counterparts, and that we avoid Establishment Clause concerns -- a precondition to wiping the legal slate clean?  In writing this, I see a number of rehabilitation-oriented programs listed on the expungement clinic website: looks great.  Isn't Brownback right that a faith-based program like Innter Change Freedom Initiative is an important contribution to this cause?  Shouldn't we try to keep these programs, structuring them in a way to minimize the concerns about government-imposed religion, rather than toss them out altogether?

Separate from all this, there's the stuff from Senator Brownback about "American exceptionalism" and our "fundamental goodness."  That deserves a separate post, since this one is already so long.

Tom