LU Program Will Benefit State’s Inmates
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The News & Advance
Published: April 24, 2008
A prisoner-education proposal by Liberty University is now the model prototype for a statewide program. The governor recently amended the state budget to expand the program to every public and private college in the state.
The real beneficiaries of such a program, of course, would be the prisoners themselves. In prisons and other correctional facilities, rehabilitation has been put on hold for decades as inmates serve out the punishment for their various crimes.
Classrooms inside the prisons equipped with computers will give those inmates a chance to get the education they deemed unnecessary earlier in their lives. For many, that education would amount to courses leading to the equivalency of a high school diploma. For others, college-level courses could lead to specialization in one subject or another or to a college degree once they have paid their debt to society.
When the General Assembly approved the budget bill, it contained the proposal by Del. Kathy Byron, R-Campbell, that authorized Liberty University to set up and offer the prison program at the new Green Run Correctional Center near Chatham.
Liberty intends to set up a model classroom to provide post-secondary education at its own expense. Ronald Godwin, executive vice president of the university, said about a third of the Green Run center’s capacity of 2,000 inmates would qualify for the computer-based education program.
Although state prison officials have not yet approved Liberty’s proposal, Godwin said LU has been planning for it for some time.
Liberty is especially positioned to provide a top-notch program to the Green Run inmates. Liberty’s distance-learning program that serves some 27,000 students is clear evidence that the university is one of the national leaders in that field. Indeed, LU’s distance learning program saw growth of more than 43 percent in the current academic year.
One major difference between the existing LU program and the prison classroom is that the prison computers would not be connected to the Internet. The computers would operate from a server in the prison classroom that would contain nothing except course material loaded into it by the teacher, who would be a Liberty employee, Godwin said. No state money would be used for the program Liberty has proposed; it would all be paid for by LU.
The Green Run Correctional Center, Godwin said, was built with classrooms that would be ideal for the program.
Give credit to Liberty for advancing the classroom prison program; once the state Department of Corrections gives it the final OK and it’s up and running, LU will be in a position to help hundreds, if not thousands, of inmates.
It will give some inmates a chance to learn and to make something of their lives when they complete their sentences. In that, the program makes winners not only of the prisoners themselves, but all of society.
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Posted by ( Randolph Knipp ) on April 29, 2008 at 10:50 am
I thought about the Muslim/Atheist University issue you postulated, Cosmo, and I agree that I would have a problem with the Muslim University, but not the Atheist one. In spite of my personal reservation about the Muslim issue, I do think it should be permitted. I don’t think the state should be in the business of prohibiting access to religion, as I stated. I also don’t think that any inmate should be pressured in any way to accept such education if it is offered. LU is in this case “helping an old lady cross the street”, providing help as an act of charity. The old lady can accept or not. I disagree that LU is “clearly” a religious organization. It is clearly an accredited university, much like Leftover Tech, or wherever it is that you got your education. I also disagree with your assessment of the Constitution as a living document in the sense you have given it. I agree with Scalia’s description of his interpretation as an “originalist”, that the meaning of the document should be the meaning that the writers intended, as best we can determine. To me, that means “marriage” (had it been addressed) would have referred to the union of man and woman. You can marry nuts to bolts, but only in Massachusetts can you marry nuts to nuts.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 29, 2008 at 4:13 am
Forgive me Randolph. We can’t help who we are. When I see a crippled-up old person trying to cross the street I try to help. When I hear a young person struggling with the pronunciation of a new word, I try to help. The same goes for you when you try to think and express a reasonably coherent thought. I’m just a “helping” kind of person. What I am thankful for is that we as a Nation don’t ask YOU to interpret the Constitution. You kind of give yourself away in your use of capital letters (we all do). It signifies importance. So, as much as you tell me that you don’t want me “interpreting” your beliefs, you leave me little choice… The Court ruled in (Everson): [Neither a state or the federal government may, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa.] Liberty is clearly a religious organization and they would not only be participating in the affairs of the State, but, seek to limit prisoners access to information to THEIR data base alone (no Internet). In “The Lemon Test”... [a court would ask whether the state action has the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion. Finally, the court would consider whether the action excessively entangles religion and government. While religion and government must interact at some points while co-existing in society, the concern here is that they do not so overlap and intertwine that people have difficulty differentiating between the two.] I certainly see potential problems there. The idea that “Liberty” is NOT there to “advance” their particularly pernicious form of Christianity is absurd in the light of each and every other action they are committed to. I wrote: “If, on the other hand, a Muslim University or an Atheist University were to do this I’m betting you would have a problem. I know I would.“ You gave no reply. In the light of your instructions to me I am forced to conclude that you are just NOT thinking at all. In an attempt to prod you into cerebral activity I will ask you…. If you were a prisoner, how would you feel if your access to education were only through the administration and data base of a Fundamentalist Muslim University? Or, perhaps a Atheist University whose mission statement included spreading the idea that religious belief was only engaged in by fools and individuals lacking in full mental capacity?
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Posted by ( JacksonPollock ) on April 28, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Randy. Unfortunately, by allowing the fox (LU) in the hen house (the captive audience known as prisoners) there is more than a tad bit of FAVORATISM TOWARDS a religous belief (Christianity). “Clean hands,“ a legal phrase, would require the state to place the education of inmates into private secular universities or public universities.
And was the Constitution written so that “in your opinion” the word favor was lower case and the word PROHIBIT capitalized. And your opinion or my opinion don’t matter since the nine men and WOMAN sitting on the Supreme Court actually decide what the living document known as the Constitution means and, like the Bible, it’s meaning changes with the times.
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Posted by ( Randolph Knipp ) on April 28, 2008 at 9:21 am
Cosmo, it is not necessary nor proper for you to speak for me. I do not think it would be a good idea for LU to take over public schools; never said so, never thought so. Speak for yourself, not me. Tell me your thoughts, not what you “think” my thoughts are; I’ll handle that department. Can you make some point based solely on your own original ideas? Do so and leave my thoughts to me.
Yes, other tax-exempt colleges have led prison programs for years, as you say. It is reasonable for this tax-exempt college to do likewise. I know that the “separation of church and state” is a great catch phrase, but my personal belief is that the Constitution simply prohibits the establishment of laws that either favor OR PROHIBIT religious belief. You do not need to interpret my belief further for me, but you are welcome to state your own interpretations, if you are so able.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 27, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Yo, Randy… Other Colleges and Universities have done this for years. You can’t act like Liberty doesn’t get benefits (Tax EXEMPT status). The problem is that tricky separation of Church & State. You, of course would love to see Liberty take over the Public Schools. If, on the other hand, a Muslim University or an Atheist University were to do this I’m betting you would have a problem. I know I would. Prisoners should not be a captive audience for any ideological group.
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Posted by ( m.paul.valois ) on April 26, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I do not support a Liberty University monopoly in prisoner education. As the second sentence of the editorial makes abundantly clear, however, this pilot program has been extended to include ALL colleges in the state. Prisoners will be able to choose which school they wish to use, so there’s no need to fear an LU takeover of our prisons.
Liberty does deserve credit for getting the pilot program up and running. This is a tremendous new resource and a step in the right direction.
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Posted by ( Randolph Knipp ) on April 25, 2008 at 9:36 pm
It is a wonderful thing that LU will step up to a real need and offer a real solution. Like teenaged boys who will tear up bathrooms when they can’t build a bird house, the atheists and their lawyers in the ACLU will do all they can to impede the progress offered by this Christian university, but they will do nothing in the way of a real solution other than propose a state program paid for with taxes rather than donations. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they put their energy into a similar program paid by their donations, instead of trying to get in the way of one proposed and paid for by others?
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Posted by ( JacksonPollock ) on April 25, 2008 at 9:36 am
This should be handled by a state funded university, not a private, fundamentalist bible school. I agree with Cosmos, there need to be fewer Bibles in prisons rather than indoctrination of prisoners by bible teachers. The ulterior motive of LU is what needs to be put forth; it sees this, I’m sure, as a “mission” field. The term “mission” implies “spreading the word.“ Prisoners are captive audiences, and the entire program reeks of indoctrination. I applaud the program for prisoners; I deplore the delivery system the state has selected. I hope the ACLU may look into this and hold this up in court until a state funded university steps forward.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 25, 2008 at 5:24 am
So, to get their “foot in the door” Liberty will set up the Green Run Correctional Center for free. There will be NO Internet access, so, all so called education will be Bible based. So much for separation of Church and State. Why should we assume this is a good thing? Out of convicted rapists, 57% admitted to reading
pornography. 95% admitted to reading the Bible. Besides that, the only group of people who are consistently UNDER-represented in American prisons are Atheists. Since comming from a “broken” or divorced home is OVER-represented as a characteristic of American prisoners we should also consider that The Associated Press computed divorce statistics (from data supplied by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health) showed that the highest divorce rates were found in the ‘Bible Belt’....the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average”. Poverty is another huge prediction factor for a persons chances of ending up incarcerated. A major study into average yearly incomes by Berry Kosmin in 1989 showed that the more you believe in Jesus the less money you earn. Is this the direction a “State” should be encouraging it’s inmates to travel? Is it just a coincidence that America has BY FAR the largest percentage of it’s population in prison AND the largest percentage of it’s population claiming to be “Born Again”? Is it just a coincidence that the larger percentage of Atheists a country contains the SMALLER percentage of it’s population is behind bars? If there IS a connection, shouldn’t we fully investigate it BEFORE we give a cart blanch go ahead to a group of people who clearly state their goal as, “To bring more people to Jesus.“? Talk about a captive audience. As Denise Golumbaski, Research Analyst
Federal Bureau of Prisons states: “Note that atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less in the prison populations (0.21%). Taking ALL this into consideration a rational person can easilly make the case that taking Bibles OUT of prisons, in all probability, will help prisoners more than putting them in. Even if we are willing to ignore all of the above, how many Virginia citizens would be willing to let a Muslim or Jewish or Hindu Fundamentalist “educational” institute have this kind of access to it’s captive prison population?
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Posted by ( m.paul.valois ) on April 24, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Kudos to LU for this program.
I would like to see it supported by the courts and the Department of Corrections. I think it would make sense to trade good behavior credit for academic credit. Earning a high school diploma means a couple of months off a sentence, perhaps.
I hope that this program doesn’t operate in isolation. To be truly effective, it must mesh with other training, counseling and treatment programs. It should also be coordinated with the work release and community diversion programs, in my opinion.
Most inmates are not vicious ogres- instead they have been raised without learning basic life skills, without receiving a decent education and without substantial moral guidance and, predictably, they’ve made progressively worse decisions, hurting themselves and others in the process, until they end up in prison.
A comprehensive education program, coupled with other components like anger management counseling, job skills training and substance abuse treatment could help a lot of inmates and provide a true benefit to society. Even a ten percent success rate would justify the effort.
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