Prison Rehab Task Force Jumps on Prison Seminary Bandwagon

Jail ’em all, let God sort ’em out…

Topping the Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force’s list of ways to reverse South Dakota’s surging recidivism is a plan to turn prisoners into preachers:

Gov. Larry Rhoden’s Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force voted Wednesday to encourage the South Dakota Department of Corrections to pursue Burl Cain’s prison seminary model. Later Wednesday, Rhoden said in a news release that he accepted that recommendation.

…The program generally works with a Christian bible college or seminary. Inmates enroll in classes through that college or seminary and obtain a degree. Cain spoke to a legislativestudy committee several months ago and stressed that the program, while faith-based, does focus on the universal theme of moral improvement. Inmate students can earn a degree that would allow them to teach or preach to inmates [Rae Yost, “Faith-Based Idea for DOC Advances in Task Force,” KELO-TV, 2025.12.17].

The thought of being locked up with a guy who constantly pushes his deity on me certainly makes me want to stay out of prison. But one academic study says the program Warden Cain implemented at Angola is less about proselytizing and more about “presence”:

“Sidewalk counseling” is a preoccupation of inmate ministers assigned to the Main Prison compound, where movement is less restricted than over the rest of the complex. Sidewalk counseling, a term coined by seminary director Dr. John Robson, refers to the non-interventionist process-counseling method for which inmate ministers are trained in the seminary. Inmate ministers describe “sidewalk counseling” as conversational in character, intended to be a “ministry of presence” rather than overtly scriptural, usually featuring a simple greeting or query as to the well-being of a fellow inmate. Importantly, inmate ministers stress the value of their lack of power at the prison, relative to correctional officers and chaplains, as their chief asset in ministry:

Process counseling is a type of counseling whereby the counselor uses great patience and asks leading questions, but never reveals his position—until the very end. A leading question might be: “Now what might God want you to learn from that?” You purposely don’t give them an answer. You give them a question. Because counselees have the answer! They just need you to encourage them a little bit, to just guide them a little. Because Doc taught us this and I’ll never forget it. He said, “If you tell a person your position, then because of who you are—they might just agree with you. However, when they walk away, they will be of the same opinion, and that probably won’t translate into a different lifestyle or a different way of thinking or change of heart. However—if you can allow that person to arrive at his own truth, then he will keep it. Because it’s his—he will own it.” And let me tell you, this has given me the opportunity to minister to people who would otherwise never even have talked to me!

While inmate proselytizing at Angola might be expected, in practice inmate ministers insist they must strive not to be “too preachy.” While inmates tolerate faith proclamations, today religious programs are far from the only enrichment opportunities available for men. “So we have always got to use a language appropriate to the audience,” says inmate minister Darius Watkins. “Even behind the pulpit, I would never utilize a Hebrew or Greek term. Why? Why should I? I don’t want to impress anyone. I really would not be smart to try to do that, trust me.” Another inmate minister put it this way:

Most of the time I’m just checking in, saying hello to someone, following-up on how their aunt is doing or something like that. Making that connection; nothing Biblical at all. Or I’ll bring a guy a pair of shoes or toothpaste, a care package. That’s my main job. Other times I have to deliver a message that someone’s family member has died.

[Michael Hallett, Jushua Hays, Byron Johnson, S.J. Jang, and Grant Duwe, “‘First Stop Dying’: Angola’s Christian Seminary as Positive Criminology,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 2015, p. 9]

But a 2011 report notes that Warden Cain himself pushed his Christianity on prisoners:

Cain’s brand of Christianity, in contrast, serves in large part as an instrument of control—and the warden has little patience for those who don’t get with his program, including other Christians. In 2009, the ACLU of Louisiana filed suit on behalf of Donald Lee Leger Jr., a practicing Catholic who had sought to take Mass while on death row. He alleged that Cain had TV screens outside his cell turned up full blast and tuned to Baptist Sunday services. Prison officials destroyed a plastic rosary sent to Leger from a nearby diocese. When Leger continued to file grievances requesting Mass, he was moved to a tier of ill-behaved inmates and finally put in the hole for 10 days. The ACLU also represented Norman Sanders (PDF), a member of a Mormon Bible study course, who was denied books from Brigham Young University and Deseret Book Direct, sources of Mormon publications. (Cain told the Christian magazine World that other religions are welcome to set up programs at Angola “as long as they’re willing to pay for it. Let them all compete to catch the most fish. I’ll stand on the bank and watch.”)

An attorney representing another prisoner told me that the inmate had been disciplined because he had not bowed his head during prayer. The prisoner also alleged that inmates who don’t participate in church services will have their privileges revoked, while those who attend will get “a day or two off from the field, a good meal, and other goodies” such as ice cream. (Some help themselves to further goodies: In a recent scandal, several inmate ministers were investigated for allegedly bribing guards to let them have sex with visitors who came for special banquets.)

Stan Moody, a onetime prison chaplain in Maine who has met with ex-Angola prisoners, believes that “Cain is without question a committed Christian” who “cares about the downtrodden and disadvantaged in a way that’s sadly missing in prisons across the US.” But he questions pushing religion onto a “literally captive” audience, especially in exchange for better treatment. What Cain seems to be creating at Angola, Moody warns, is an atmosphere of “imposed Christian values” designed to put “notches on the old salvation belt” [James Ridgeway, “God’s Own Warden,” Mother Jones, July/August 2011].

Hallett and Johnson, cited above, have done research at Angola indicating that religious conversion correlates strongly with less misconduct in prison. But that still wouldn’t justify a state prison making efforts to convert prisoners to Christianity or any other religion. And we have plenty of grounds for being skeptical of claims that prison seminaries themselves can solve violence and recidivism:

Supporters of faith-based corrections argue that the state should accommodate in-prison religious programming for the following reasons: it promotes a moral code that will reduce recidivism, it increases inmate morale, it teaches inmates self-discipline, it can ease the state’s strained financial coffers by relying on volunteers to deliver faith-based programming, and because, quite simply, it works. While over half of prisoners released from “traditional” prisons will return to prison within three years, recidivism rates in faith-based programs are reportedly as low as 13%.

Critics of faith-based prison programs are skeptical of these claims. They argue that faith cannot be isolated as the variable that reduces recidivism since faith-based prison programs are highly selective. By allowing only the best-behaved inmates (who already have the lowest rates of recidivism) to participate, faith-based programs may be creating the impression that there is a strong correlation between religious programming and low recidivism rates.

Critics also argue that any program that shows compassion to inmates and helps prepare them for life after prison will necessarily reduce recidivism. Secular programs are more desirable, they hold, because they can achieve similar results without breaching the healthy separation between religion and state [Brad Stoddard, “Faith-Based Prisons: More Religion Equals Less Crime?” Sightings, University of Chicago Divinity School, 2013.12.19].

The ACLU has indicated that a prison seminary program can escape an Establishment Clause challenge as long as it is “paid for privately, is voluntary, and admits non-Christians.” To be both constitutional and fully effective, any prison seminary program that South Dakota adopts must respect religious pluralism. Let the prisoners find Jesus, or Buddha, or the Great Spirit, and let them use their faith to help each other, but don’t let them or prison officials turn their faith into a cudgel.