Minnesota Cuts Funds for Prison Program

Minnesota will not honor a $100,000 per year contract with a Christian prisoner-rehabilitation program after discovering the program offers the same service to other states free, reports The St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The InnerChange Freedom Initiative had negotiated two two-year contracts with the state government worth $400,000 when officials discovered that other states, like Texas, did not pay for services. Minnesota ceased payments to InnerChange retroactive to January 1. A board member at the group called the Minnesota Department of Corrections and agreed to continue work without pay.

A chaplain of a woman’s prison in a Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb, Kristine Holmgren, had raised concerns about InnerChange spreading to her prison but was fired last year.

State officials said that ensuring the constitutional separation of state and church was not a factor in terminating the contract, though the article reports that InnerFaith’s program resembled a prisoner-rehabilitation program in Iowa that a federal court rejected on the grounds that religion and government were mixing.

Read The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s coverage of a court ruling on Christian prisoner programs.

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