U.S. Prison Seminaries: Structural Charity, Religious Establishment, and Neoliberal Corrections

• Author: Sung Joon Jang,Michael Hallett,Joshua Hays,Bryon Johnson,Grant Duwe
• DOI: 10.1177/0032885519825490
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• Date: 01 March 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885519825490

The Prison Journal

2019, Vol. 99(2) 150 –171

© 2019 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0032885519825490

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Article

U.S. Prison Seminaries:

Structural Charity,

Religious Establishment,

and Neoliberal

Corrections

Michael Hallett1, Bryon Johnson2, Joshua Hays2,

Sung Joon Jang2, and Grant Duwe3

Abstract

Using archival and site-based research, this article explores operational

practices at six U.S. prison seminary programs regarding concepts of

religious establishment. Further highlighted is a shift toward faith-based

volunteerism as a “structural charity” in correctional budgeting. While

religious programs offer powerfully transformative access to social capital

for many inmates, the recent insertion of Christian “seminaries” into U.S.

prisons arguably fosters religious establishment in four key areas: a lack of

state neutrality toward religion, excessive state entanglement with religious

service providers, inadequate solicitation of alternative programming, and a

de facto measure of coercion in delivery of services.

Keywords

prison seminaries, Establishment Clause, religion in prison

1University of North Florida, Jacksonville, USA

2Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA

3Minnesota Department of Corrections, St. Paul, USA

Corresponding Author:

Michael Hallett, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of North Florida,

Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA.

Email: mhallett@unf.edu

825490TPJXXX10.1177/0032885519825490The Prison JournalHallett et al.

research-article2019

Hallett et al. 151

Introduction: Religious Philanthropy as Structural

Charity in U.S. Corrections

At stake in this new configuration of welfare, is something rather different from

the simple privatization of welfare threatened by long-standing libertarian critics.

What we have witnessed over the last 10 to 15 years is not a return to private

charity as it existed before the New Deal, but rather the implementation of a form

of structural charity—structural in the sense that it is abetted by the state, but

charitable in the sense that it retains the discretionary, unpredictable and ad-hoc

nature of private philanthropy. (Emphasis in original; Cooper, 2015, p. 65)

Faith-based volunteers have become an important staple of correctional

services in the United States, especially among jurisdictions striving to

“shrink government” through expanded privatization and direct use of vol-

unteer service organizations (Hallett, 2006; Hannah-Moffat, 2000;

Willison, Brazzell, & King, 2010; Ward, 2006). As under-resourced pris-

ons increasingly rely upon faith-based volunteerism for providing services

to inmates, research on the constitutionality of faith-based programming

has not kept pace with the full range of emerging programs (Kemp, 2007).

Due to widespread reliance by corrections officials upon faith-based vol-

unteers for delivering cost-effective services to prisoners and ex-offend-

ers, religious volunteers increasingly find themselves to be the sole

resource available for inmates (Erzen, 2017; Hackworth, 2012; Sullivan,

2009). Religious volunteers, long concerned about the deleterious and

neglectful state of prisons, find themselves in legal jeopardy for violating

“establishment” strictures under both the U.S. Constitution and individual

state constitutions (Hallett & Bookstaver, 2017; Sullivan, 2009). Drawing

from precedent established in the Charitable Choice provisions enacted

under President Clinton, legislation for faith-based correctional program-

ming explicitly identifies the fiscal and human capital resources available

from religious volunteer organizations as a proxy resource for effectuating

reductions in correctional spending (Boden, 2006; Dagan & Teles, 2012,

2014; Fields, 2005).

While past research has explored the constitutionality of immersive pro-

grams such as faith-based dormitories, none has yet systematically evalu-

ated the constitutionality of emergent “prison seminary” programs.1 In

what is fast becoming a nationwide movement, prison seminary programs

are now operational or currently being implemented in 17 states. As part of

a larger research agenda evaluating the rehabilitative impact of Christian

seminaries planted in U.S. prisons, this article offers the first systematic

exploration of issues concerning “religious establishment” in multiple U.S.

prison seminaries (Duwe, Hallett, Hays, Jang, & Johnson, 2015; Hallett,