CONN VS. CON

Faith programs reshape prison: Despite decrease in violence, warden's policies at Marion facility worry some civil liberties groups (Associated Press, Aug. 04, 2003)

Inmates at the state prison here say calm has replaced rampant drugs and violence since the arrival of a new warden seven years ago.

As well as starting more education and job training programs at Marion Correctional Institution, Warden Christine Money has drawn national attention for programs that allow inmates greater freedom to exercise religious beliefs.

Promise Keepers, a Christian men's group, will come to the prison about 45 miles north of Columbus on Aug. 12 for its first rally behind bars. [...]

"When I first got here in 1993, this place was unbelievable,'' said John Burroughs, from Lorain, who is serving a seven- to 25-year sentence for rape. "This was a very evil, dark prison. I was scared for my life.''

Since Money's arrival, drug offenses and violence against corrections officers and other inmates have almost disappeared, officials said. The prison also greatly reduced the number of grievances filed by inmates, which once averaged 100 a month. Last month, 12 were filed. [...]

[A]mericans United for Separation of Church and State has urged the prisons director to drop the Promise Keepers event. The Washington-based group has filed lawsuits challenging events that combine government and religion.

"Government officials should never be in a position of sponsoring what amounts to a high-tech tent revival,'' group spokesman Joe Conn said. ``It's clear they've gotten out on a legal limb. They need to come back in.''

The American Jewish Congress in New York also asked Wilkinson to withdraw support for Promise Keepers, saying the program seems to offer preferential treatment for inmates who participate.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio is less concerned. Christine Link, the chapter's executive director, said religion behind bars is not a problem, so long as all faiths have equal opportunity.

You've gotta go some to be more extremist on separation of Church and State than the ACLU.

MORE:
Faith-Based Fudging: How a Bush-promoted Christian prison program fakes success by massaging data. (Mark A.R. Kleiman, August 5, 2003, Slate)

You don't have to believe in faith-healing to think that an intensive 16-month program, with post-release follow-up, run by deeply caring people might be the occasion for some inmates to turn their lives around. The report seemed to present liberal secularists with an unpleasant choice: Would you rather have people "saved" by Colson, or would you rather have them commit more crimes and go back to prison?

But when you look carefully at the Penn study, it's clear that the program didn't work. The InnerChange participants did somewhat worse than the controls: They were slightly more likely to be rearrested and noticeably more likely (24 percent versus 20 percent) to be reimprisoned. If faith is, as Paul told the Hebrews, the evidence of things not seen, then InnerChange is an opportunity to cultivate faith; we certainly haven't seen any results.

So, how did the Penn study get perverted into evidence that InnerChange worked? Through one of the oldest tricks in the book, one almost guaranteed to make a success of any program: counting the winners and ignoring the losers. The technical term for this in statistics is "selection bias"; program managers know it as "creaming." Harvard public policy professor Anne Piehl, who reviewed the study before it was published, calls this instance of it "cooking the books."

Here's how the study got adulterated.

InnerChange started with 177 volunteer prisoners but only 75 of them "graduated." Graduation involved sticking with the program, not only in prison but after release. No one counted as a graduate, for example, unless he got a job. Naturally, the graduates did better than the control group. Anything that selects out from a group of ex-inmates those who hold jobs is going to look like a miracle cure, because getting a job is among the very best predictors of staying out of trouble. And inmates who stick with a demanding program of self-improvement through 16 months probably have more inner resources, and a stronger determination to turn their lives around, than the average inmate.

The InnerChange cheerleaders simply ignored the other 102 participants who dropped out, were kicked out, or got early parole and didn't finish. Naturally, the non-graduates did worse than the control group. If you select out the winners, you leave mostly losers.

Overall, the 177 entrants did a little bit worse than the controls. That result ought to discourage InnerChange's advocates, but it doesn't because they have just ignored the failure of the failures and focused on the success of the successes.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 8, 2003 6:58 PM