As you may know from BreakPoint, a federal judge has ordered the state of Iowa to shut down the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, commonly referred to as IFI. It’s a successful faith-based pre-release program. The judge ruled that IFI violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.
One week ago, IFI, Prison Fellowship, and the state of Iowa filed notice of an appeal in the case. Why would Prison Fellowship spend so much time and money fighting this case? As you’ve heard me say, it’s a matter of religious freedom. We can’t sit idly by while the courts make it nearly impossible for prisoners to receive the ministry they’ve requested or for faith-based organizations to provide invaluable social services.
And you’ve also heard me say, it’s a matter of public safety. This country cannot afford to merely warehouse its 2.3 million prisoners. As a recent report by a blue ribbon commission stated, idleness in prison breeds frustration, frustration breeds violence, and that violence spills out into our communities when inmates are released from prison. So the last thing we need is courts shutting down effective rehabilitation programs in our prisons.
But now it’s time to get personal. I’d like to introduce you to just two of the faces behind the legal abstractions, men who have gone through the IFI program, and now have been transformed by the grace of God.
Aaron Ganfield grew up around drugs and alcohol. By 18 he was a full-blown cocaine and methamphetamine addict. At 22, Aaron was arrested for packing drugs and a gun. The court slapped him with a 50-year prison sentence.
Aaron soon applied for the IFI program, where, he says, “Christ began transforming me in new and wonderful ways.” Aaron completed the program and was released in 2003. He attended college. He got married. Today he serves as the facility manager of Wildwood Hills Ranch, a faith-based camp that ministers to children who have suffered neglect, abuse, and poverty.
Every day Aaron touches the lives of youth who are headed down a perilous path — helping them discover the same hope and promise for change that he found in Christ.
Or take Robert Sutton. Caught up in gangs and drugs on the streets of Houston, he ended up in a Texas prison, serving a 35-year sentence for murder. But in 1997, he applied for the IFI program in Texas. It was there that he learned about personal responsibility and how crime ravages victims and the community. After his release from prison, he became a custodian and a van driver at his Houston church and is a productive citizen. In 2003, he attended a meeting at the White House, where he told President Bush and several cabinet members how Christ and the IFI program changed his life forever.
We’re fighting this ruling and appealing the judge’s decision to close down IFI because we will not turn our backs on men like Aaron and Robert, or the hundreds of others now participating in IFI.
And, in the end, we believe that the appeals courts will find that helping prisoners become productive citizens is indeed constitutional.
(This update courtesy of the Breakpoint.)
