Religion for a Captive Audience, Paid For by Taxes - New York Times

Let me just say this about this (if I can steady my outraged hands enough to type):

Sin = Error. That is what it literally means. If breaking man-made laws is a sin, then I guess that prison inmates did, in fact, commit an error, unless, of course, the Judge or Jury made a mistake. (More likely than we once thought, eh?)

Repent means: "Change your mind, think differently". (It doesn't mean think like me or the evangelical nutcases who seem to hold prisoners' lives, such as they are, in their hands.) It comes from the Greek; metanoia.

This is just one more reason for tax-resistance, as far as I am concerned. I will be damned if I will allow my money to be spent for some grossly-overweight, read pathological as hell (as they usually are, unless there is an organic reason) fundy preacher to set about brain washing prisoners.

There are better ways to get a prisoner to change his/her mind than swapping one kind of dogma for another.

This makes me so mad, I could spit ten-penny nails!


Religion for a Captive Audience, Paid For by Taxes - New York Times:

The cells in Unit E had real wooden doors and doorknobs, with locks. More books and computers were available, and inmates were kept busy with classes, chores, music practice and discussions. There were occasional movies and events with live bands and real-world food, like pizza or sandwiches from Subway. Best of all, there were opportunities to see loved ones in an environment quieter and more intimate than the typical visiting rooms.

But the only way an inmate could qualify for this kinder mutation of prison life was to enter an intensely religious rehabilitation program and satisfy the evangelical Christians running it that he was making acceptable spiritual progress. The program — which grew from a project started in 1997 at a Texas prison with the support of George W. Bush, who was governor at the time — says on its Web site that it seeks “to ‘cure’ prisoners by identifying sin as the root of their problems” and showing inmates “how God can heal them permanently, if they turn from their sinful past.