Religious Program Ruled Unconstitutional

A federal judge ruled that Prison Fellowship Ministries and the State of Iowa violated the Constitution by running a program to help prisoners by immersing them in Christianity, The Washington Post reports. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in Washington, sued the state and the charity in federal court.

U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt ruled that the organization’s InnerChange Freedom Initiative program at Iowa’s Newton Correctional Facility violated the constitutional ban on government establishment of religion because the program was focused on religious conversion and was paid for by the state.

The judge said that inmates who voluntarily entered into the program received better living conditions and other benefits than those who did not and that the prison did not offer any secular or non-Christian program.

Mr. Pratt ordered the state to close the InnerChange program within 60 days, and ordered Prison Fellowship Ministries to return at least $1.5-million it received from the state since 1999, the year the program was established. However, the judge said neither the state nor the charity had to take those actions until an appeal had made its way through the court system.