Faith-Based Prison Programs

Successful programs designed to reach more prisoners and reduce recidivism

“Rehabilitating offenders while incarcerated

makes your neighborhood safer.”

The State of Texas currently has the capacity to house 156,000 prisoners and the system is full. About 75,000 men and women will be released this year. At least 34,000 will be back in prison in less than two years. Texas spends $2.6 Billion every year for the prison system. In the two minutes it takes you to read this proposal, Texas will spend $10,000 on prisons.

Everyone can see that something is wrong, but what can we do? Christian Prison Ministries has helped prisoners through intense individual mentoring as well as group education for over 10 years. In August of 2007 we expanded our programs to include a full time faith-based wing at the George Beto Unit.

One of our key early measurements of the success of the programs is by monitoring disciplinary problems which are good indicators of changed lives, resulting in a lower recidivism. The prison’s Major Disciplinary Problem Report (MDPR) for 2007 shows the faith-based wing at Beto had four (4) times less issues that any other wing and six (6) times less issues than the average.

While the George Beto faith-based wing is new, only having been in existence since August of 2007, we can extrapolate the indications of ultimate success, reduced recidivism, from the MDPR statistics and our own decade-long experience. Over the last 10 years Christian Prison Ministries has experienced less than 5% re-incarceration. The state average re-incarceration is between 45% and 70%.

We project that each wing, after the initial 2 year introduction, should save the state prison system $325,000.00 every year just from the people who remain free and productive.

The key to success is the dedicated and committed individuals who have training, tools and community support for this mission.

The following is our projected Plan/Needs:

FINANCIAL: Maintain the current activity - $70,000.

Open 4 Wings - $70,000.

Train and empower 100 volunteers - $10,000.

Build a training center - $500,000.

Total: $650,000.

STATUS: Programs are in place and $40,000 has been raised at this time. We have located property for the training center. It already has the lodge and meeting rooms we need to add a bunk house and director’s cottage.

ACTION: Invite your state and national representatives to introduce legislation that will maintain an environment where faith-based activities are encouraged for correctional facilities. Also encourage other constituents to support Christian Prison Ministries financially and as volunteers.