Send in the National Guard? It’s time for a paradigm shift in FDOC | Opinion

When Florida says, "send in the National Guard," you generally know that a hurricane has hit the state.  In this case, however, it's the hurricane of high staff turnover, extreme violence, low pay, and dangerous conditions decimating the Florida Department of Corrections.

In late 2019 Department of Corrections Secretary Mark Inch declared Florida’s prison system in a “death spiral,” with Senate Appropriations chair Jeff Brandes adding: "This is not a prison system that anybody can look you in the eye and tell you a person ... will be safe in the state's care." 

Unfortunately, nothing substantial has changed since Secretary Inch’s prognosis to improve Florida’s prisons. Can sending in the Florida National Guard possibly reverse such a scenario? Not likely. But Florida is not alone in facing a crisis in corrections.

Amid the collapse of prison systems nationwide, wardens are striving to innovate through an agenda working in partnership with religious parachurch organizations and private seminaries to deliver voluntary rehabilitation programs at no cost to prisons or prisoners. In what is fast-becoming a nationwide model of new public-private partnerships, wardens desperate to offer meaningful programming to inmates are designing new collaborations hosting volunteer religious educators and non-profit organizations to train select prisoners in process counseling and conflict management. 

Motivated by concerns about America’s failing prisons, religious educators and private volunteers are stepping in to deliver a growing slate of education and rehabilitative services inside prisons. In fact, over 50 US maximum-security prisons in 29 states are currently operating such programs. And one such program already exists here in Florida, at the Hardee Correctional Institution.

Critics of this new “charter prison” model argued at first that faith-based programs such as these violated strictures of “separation of church and state,” because they relied upon some state support. They next argued such programs succeed through “selection bias” rather than genuine inmate transformation. Today, however, faith-based programs such as these are fully funded through private philanthropy, while peer-reviewed matched-sampling research strategies (that control for selection bias) demonstrate faith-based programs to be transformational, to operate at lower cost, and to often be more effective over the long term than secular programs. 

Florida’s strong track record with voluntary faith-based correctional programs and prison privatization make it an ideal jurisdiction for expanding charter prisons. Charter prisons encourage innovation and partnerships with outside agencies, rendering prisons both more transparent and cost-effective. More importantly, charter prisons focus on rewarding inmates’ good behavior and incentivizing it as well. Charter prison programs are strictly nonprofit and unapologetically selective in the prisoners they serve, increasing success and lowering costs. 

Can such religious charter prison programs solve all our problems in American corrections? Certainly, no. Sentencing reform is a must.

Should faith-based programs remain ecumenical and completely voluntary in every respect? Absolutely yes.  But can religious charter prison programs help bolster failing prisons while incorporating new strategies? Clear evidence shows that they can. As one peer-reviewed six-year study of a religious education program run by Prison Fellowship in Minnesota put it: “The findings showed that during its first six years of operation in Minnesota, InnerChange produced an estimated benefit of $3 million, which amounts to nearly $8,300 per participant.”

It’s time to get serious about Florida’s prison crisis. These new programs offer some means of doing so.  

Michael Hallett is a professor of criminology at the University of North Florida and serves as a Senior Research Fellow at Baylor University and the Center for Faith and the Common Good at Pepperdine University. His most recent books include The Angola Prison Seminary and The Restorative Prison. 

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