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Interfaith Prisons

We have received the following from the Lawyers Christian Fellowship:

A groundbreaking discipleship course for prisoners in Dartmoor prison has been axed by the Prison Service after only one year because it did not comply with ‘diversity policies’.

The closure of the Inner Change programme raises wider concerns for similar programmes and courses, such as Alpha, in British prisons because of fears that they may fall foul of the multi-faith approach of the government. Lady Georgie Wates, of the Prison Fellowship, who helped to set up the course in Dartmoor Prison, said the future of Christian teaching and chaplaincy in prisons was now hanging in the balance. “There are two reasons for the closure. First we don’t comply with the diversity policy of the Prison Service because we teach the sanctity of heterosexual marriage as the Bible says, which is seen as homophobic. “And secondly, because we don’t fit in with the multi-faith agenda. They think we should be teaching a bit of every religion and that what we’re teaching offends other faiths.”

The Inner Change programme, based on similar discipleship courses in the United States, was adopted for a pilot programme by the Rev Bill Birdwood, Chaplain of Dartmoor, last year. The course is based around Alpha, but aims to create a Christian community in the prison and includes follow-up and Christian mentoring after release. In some American states recidivism has been reduced to eight per cent by the programme. But Inner Change fell foul of both the Prison Service and the Chaplain General, the Ven William Noblett, who cast doubt on the programme’s principles and practicability after a visit last year. The Chaplain General is currently asking chaplains to sign up to a ‘multi-faith’ covenant, which requires them not to “knowingly say or do anything which insults or in any way denigrates the faith of any other person. Should we unwittingly offend we ask that the one we offend helps us in a gentle and gracious way to understand how that insult occurred. We will not knowingly distribute or display any literature which offends another Faith tradition.” Lady Wates argued that some aspects of Christian teaching could be offensive to those of other faiths. “If we teach Jesus is the Son of God, of course it is going to offend people. “I’m amazed and bitterly disappointed to see a programme which is having such an impact and seeing change being stopped.” The Inner Change course was staffed by volunteers and funded outside the Prison Service. At its recent accreditation review prison officers testified about the positive effect it was having among previously difficult prisoners.

The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who recently expressed concerns about the marginalisation of Christianity in chaplaincies, said he regretted the closure of Inner Change. He said that the closure seemed to be because the course was ‘too Christian’. He said the claim that it was ‘proselytising’, even though it was entirely voluntarily and welcomed people of other faiths, could affect the nature of chaplaincy work across the board. The Home Office said this week that all ‘offending behaviour programmes’ are subject to approval by an accreditation panel and that Inner Change was closed in June this year.

The Chaplain General was not available for comment.

Prison service axes Christian course
By Jonathan Petre - (Filed: Telegraph 08/07/2006)

A pioneering Christian course for prisoners in Dartmoor has been closed by the Prison Service after criticism that it did not comply with "diversity policies".

The Inner Change programme was adopted last year as a pilot by the Rev Bill Birdwood, the chaplain at Dartmoor, but was axed last month after apparently falling foul of the Government's "multi-faith" approach.

Prisoners who convert to Christianity through the programme are expected to live disciplined lives, eschewing drugs and pornography.

They are also followed up after their release to try to ensure that they do not re-offend.

Supporters say that in some US states where the programme has been developed recidivism has been reduced to eight per cent.

Lady Georgie Wates, of the Prison Fellowship, who helped set up the course, said the future of Christian teaching and chaplaincy in prisons was now hanging in the balance.

"There are two reasons for the closure," she told the Church of England newspaper this week. First we don't comply with the diversity policy of the prison service because we teach the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, as the Bible says, which is seen as homophobic. And secondly, because we don't fit in with the multi-faith agenda.

"They think we should be teaching a bit of every religion and that what we're teaching offends other faiths.

"If we teach Jesus is the Son of God, of course it is going to offend people." But she said that should not be a reason for curtailing the programme.

The Inner Change course was staffed by volunteers and funded outside the prison service. At its recent accreditation review prison officers testified about the positive effect it was having among previously difficult prisoners.

The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who recently expressed concerns about the marginalisation of Christianity in chaplaincies, said he regretted the closure of Inner Change.

He said the closure seemed to be because the programme was "too Christian".

No faith in prisons means there's no hope for prisoners
By Charles Moore - (Filed: Telegraph 08/07/2006)

Everyone agrees that there is a problem about prison. For some - the "...and throw away the key" school - there should be more prisoners, locked up for longer, to keep the rest of us safe. Others think there should be fewer people in prison, since prison only degrades its inmates.

But both sides accept that the aspect of prison that works badly is reoffending. Recidivism is very high. Prison may protect the public, but at present it does not succeed in getting criminals to go straight.

In the United States in the 1990s, Chuck Colson, who had been in prison for his part in the Watergate scandal in the Nixon White House, invented a programme called InnerChange. The idea was "the transformation of lives through the love of God". In several states, including Texas, then under the governorship of George W Bush, prisoners went on a course that introduced them to role models from the Bible, learning from parables such as that of the Prodigal Son or the Lost Sheep. The programmes also provided what is so often lacking - follow-up after release.

Reoffending fell dramatically. In Texas, it is claimed that recidivism dropped from 55 per cent to eight per cent for those who took part in InnerChange.

More recently, InnerChange came to Britain. In early 2005, it began a pilot project in Dartmoor Prison, supported by the then governor, Claudia Sturt. The programme was modest (only 10 prisoners were permanently on it) and voluntary. It, too, offered aftercare, and it did so to all participants, including those who refused to embrace Christianity.

Sturt was promoted to Belmarsh last year, however, and from then on, life became harder for InnerChange at Dartmoor. It was decided that the programme should be accredited under what is called PSO 4350 (Effective Prison Interventions), even though this is normally used for "commissioned" schemes in which public money is involved, and InnerChange raised its own funds and did not seek this accreditation.

Someone called the Area Psychologist of the Prison Service was told to have a look at InnerChange, and she did not like much of what she saw. She reported that the leader of the programme believed "the root of offending is in individual sin", and she opined that this "lacks basis in specific scientific research".

Warming to her theme, the Area Psychologist wrote: "The place of anti-social behaviour in the concept of good and evil, god [she kept God lower case] and the devil may not encourage self-responsibility in a manner which enables the individual to make sophisticated choices when faced with complex situations in their lives." She worried that the programme might proselytise and that the people who ran it believed that their version of Christianity was "right".

She also noted that the programme promoted the unique virtue of heterosexual marriage. This meant, she concluded, that it was "discriminatory" against homosexuality: "This issue will prevent the Validation Panel approving the programme."

The Chaplain-General to the Prison Service, the Ven William Noblett, has refused to comment publicly, but he was scarcely more friendly to InnerChange and agreed that it should be refused accreditation. He has ordered all prison chaplains to sign a declaration that: "We will not as chaplains knowingly say or do anything which insults or in any way denigrates the faith of any other person... We will not knowingly display any literature which offends another faith tradition."

The supporters of InnerChange say they have no desire to cause offence to other faiths, but they point out that, for example, many Muslims regard the idea that Jesus Christ is the Son of God as intrinsically offensive. Does that mean that no Christian may say it? Can one of Archdeacon Noblett's chaplains only do his (or her) job if he promises never to say the Creed or display a Bible?

Archdeacon Noblett's Faith Council report on InnerChange said the programme did not "sit well with multi-faith chaplaincy". It also worried that there were "issues about whether what works in the religious and social context of the United States would necessarily work in the prison context here".

I have not seen InnerChange at work, and it may be that there are some things wrong with it. It would be surprising if a project that started out saying it needed three to five years had got everything right in a few months. But the story has wider implications than the particular problems of one small evangelical venture.

The public doctrine of "multi-faith" seems now to have been pushed way beyond its origin - the admirable desire to respect different faiths. It has become a concept in which the word "multi" trumps the word "faith". Trying in any way to convert others is considered wrong.

Since Christianity and Islam are both, by their nature, religions of conversion, this would seem to disable them, though those who have contact with the Prison Service tell me that in practice none of these restrictions is applied to Islam, and all are imposed on Christianity.

As for the doctrine of "diversity", it appears, in a manner that George Orwell could have satirised beautifully, to mean the opposite. "Diversity" means that you may say nothing, even by implication (InnerChange has nothing in its programme on the subject), against homosexuality.

And ideas that come from a nasty foreign place such as the United States must be rejected here. Yet imagine the fuss if Archdeacon Noblett's team had questioned Muslim programmes because of "issues" about whether the "religious and social context" of seventh-century Arabia would work in British prisons today.

One reason that this matters so much is that, without the religious element, there is so little success in helping prisoners lead new lives. The Christian insight, contained in the title InnerChange, is that people at rock bottom can escape their condition only if their hearts alter. The characteristic paradox - "when I am weak then am I strong" - is that it is only when you put yourself in the hands of God that you can take charge of your life.

Even for those who do not accept this idea in theological terms, it is a fact that many who find faith do, in the process, recover dignity, and start to lead lives that benefit themselves, their family and their neighbours. The need for such recovery is as desperate as it has ever been.

If you look at the current £5 note, you see that it depicts Elizabeth Fry, who was born in 1780. At the age of 18, the young Elizabeth decided suddenly that "there is a God". She visited women prisoners in Newgate and was shocked by the conditions there, concluding that physical and spiritual squalor went hand-in-hand.

She devoted her life to prison reform, opposing capital punishment, installing a school and a chapel in Newgate and making Bible classes compulsory there. In 1835, she told a parliamentary committee: "I feel it to be the bounden duty of the Government and the country that these truths [contained in the Bible] should be administered in the manner most likely to conduce to the real reformation of prisoners, for though severe punishment may, in a measure, deter them and others from crime, it does not amend or change the heart."

What would the Area Psychologist have made of her? Can Archdeacon Noblett's multi-faith society tolerate such a woman on our national currency?

Andrea Minichiello Williams
LCF Public Policy Officer
0771 2591164

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