ABSTRACT

The most startling fact in corrections is the seemingly unstoppable rise in the nation’s prison population. The difficulty for many criminologists, however, is that they were, and are, largely bereft of any positive agenda for the prison—short, again, of abolishing it or minimizing its use. In an inhumane prison environment, staff could not be trusted to exercise their discretion fairly and with expertise. Prison litigation did much to improve basic standards of living within correctional facilities and to accord offenders religious and legal rights. The mission of the virtuous prison is to use offenders’ time of incarceration to cultivate moral awareness and the capacity to act virtuously. The goal of prison organization would be to create a “virtuous milieu.” In April of 1997, Prison Fellowship Ministries—the religiously based prison reform group begun by Charles Colson—initiated the “Inner-Change Freedom Initiative” in a minimum-security prison located outside Houston and under the auspices of the Texas Department of Correction.