ABSTRACT
Historically, the Anglo-American rationale for incarceration has been based on the notion that incarceration neutralizes those who are capable of endangering societal order by committing predatory crime. However, following its Judeo-Christian roots, the thrust of the American penology has been that the efficacy of incarceration, as penal measure, is enhanced when it is utilized in conjunction with the ideals of penance. Simply put, incarceration is a means for rehabilitative purposes and not an end by and of itself. Following this rationale, American penal institutions have ideally been conceived as places for correcting convicts whose congregation within the penal settings is a temporal form of regulated deprivation from civil liberties that ordinary citizens enjoy. This regulated deprivation comprises the proverbial pay-back of one’s dues to a society whose laws and functioning order he or she has violated. Thus, by going through a regime of hard work, iron clad discipline, and a Judeo-Christian-based education system in the penitentiaries, the pay-back is materialized. But this is not the end of the process; once released from prison, the ex-convicts, having gone through such an ironclad penance experience, would very likely not recidivate so as to redeem their places in society. As discussed in previous chapters, there was a time that these ideals seemed to be working, but from the 1960s onwards the ensuing prison overcrowding derailed penance ideals by gradually turning penal institutions into convict warehouses to the effect that overcrowding has now become a constitutional issue, some of which we discussed in previous chapters of this book. Despite various reform measures initiated during the post-overcrowding era (1960-to present) to ameliorate prison overcrowding, it remains one of the daunting tasks facing American corrections. The strategic question facing prison administrators has been how to manage limited prison space so that the penitentiaries remain rehabilitative at the same time that they don’t lose their justice-punitive edge? Faith-based rehabilitation is one resurging alternative even though it is not a newcomer to American corrections as discussed in previous chapters of this book.
