FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The Inner Change Program, begun at this Texas prison in 1997, has been copied in three more states. Colson says it's effective and timely. He claims it's a bulwark against terrorism. CHARLES COLSON: There is a great danger in the prisons, and I have seen this firsthand, of radical Islam taking a real hold. People in prisons are very alienated from society, very angry, most of them. If they can get a Christian influence, where we're taught to love the Lord with all our heart and mind and soul, and love our neighbor as ourself, I think that's a great thing. FRED DE SAM LAZARO: However, critics, like Barry Lynn, who heads the group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, say a bigger danger is to the Constitution. A lawyer and ordained minister, Lynn says prisoners who want to be rehabilitated must first embrace specific religious beliefs. REV. BARRY LYNN: When Chuck Colson talks about Christianity, it is a fundamentalist, biblical literalism that he's preaching. He has every right to promote it privately. He has no right to expect that the government of Texas or anyplace else is going to help him promote it in their prisons. FRED DE SAM LAZARO: If the Nation of Islam, for example, were to come in tomorrow and say we have a program we think will work, let us into Carol Vance to run a parallel program. Would that appease you in any way? REV. BARRY LYNN: If there was a genuinely free voluntary choice between perfectly fine secular programs and a variety of programs that reflected the different religious and philosophical outlets, I would not have nearly as much problem as I've got today. Ironically, though, even to get Muslim clerics into prisons as chaplains, has become very difficult in many prisons because what they really want are people from the Christian community. FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Lynn's group has sued to block the Inner Change program in Iowa. That state, unlike Texas, helps prison ministries pay for the program by charging all inmates, not just those in the program, a fee to use the telephone. Iowa officials argue that phone revenue supports only non-religious parts of the program, like job training, not the ministry. State officials say the goal is to keep men out of prison. And Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowships, says it's working. MARK EARLEY: In the state of Texas just recently completed a study in February of this year, which they released, showing that of all the inmates that had been through our program, that the recidivism rate was eight percent. That was compared to 22 percent of the closet control group they could find, and about 50 percent of the recidivism rate of the general population. FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Barry Lynn says the study is of a motivated group of prisoners that's less likely to re-offend anyway. In any event, he adds, you would expect success. REV. BARRY LYNN: If the choice is between a program that does nothing for you, as we've found in Iowa, or a program that helps you stay in touch with your family, keep grounded in the community and guarantee you a job afterwards, of course you're going to do better if you have all those benefits. It seems to me that corrections officials ought to offer it to everyone, not just those people who choose to undergo a religious conversion on the way to getting these benefits. | 
