The Bureau of Prisons is required under the First Step Act to allow private organizations, including faith-based ones, to provide rehabilitation services to federal prisons. The purpose of the Act is to reduce the likelihood of prison inmates re-offending, once they have been released. Prisons are meant to collaborate with “non-profit and other private organizations, including faith-based, art, and community-based organizations that will deliver recidivism reduction programming on a paid or volunteer basis.”

According to the 2022 Annual Report, the Federal Bureau of Prisons received 11 external applications to supply “Evidence Based Recidivism Reduction” and “Productive Activities.” They only approved one faith-based organisation.

The letter submitted by senators James Lankford and Gary Peters does not give details on the number of external applicants in 2023. However, after communicating with the agency, the bipartisan pair of senators realised that the branch had received eight faith-based applications. Five of the eight applications were denied and a sixth was still pending. They did not provide any information on why religious groups had been denied.

According to the letter: “To the best of our knowledge, the two that have been approved are PAs, meaning there are currently zero external faith-based EBRRs operating within BOP. These numbers are concerning, particularly at a time when individuals across the BOP system are on waitlists to participate in EBRR programming.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins – a preceding commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, who was also in the Louisiana House of Representatives – expressed his gratitude to the senators for highlighting the issue: “During my time in office, I helped expand the prison access of faith-based groups and recidivism rates dropped significantly. Life change — built on the foundational knowledge of God’s love and forgiveness — can have lasting effects.”

Source: https://www.christianpost.com