when it comes to how me and my family are treated, you treat me with respect, i am going to respect you but i won't take any crap off of you. that helped me not only maintain -- gave me a beautiful outlook people and i would say respect is what i bring to life. i feel good about people i meet and give the best counsel in the world to try to keep balanced and recognizing that, right to do this, so pursuant. it is worth it. >> from booktv's recent visit to

to, washington, examining the role religion plays in the us prison. >> the name of the book is "god in captivity," the rise of faith-based ministries in our era of mass incarceration. i taught at a woman's prison, on the west side highway, when i would go in the dj college class i noticed the only other people were prisoners, their families or religious volunteers and there were so many of them. around that time in early 2003, someone sent me an article from the new york times, in florida when jeff bush was governor he had taken state prisons and transform them into faith-based institutions so the whole idea that rehabilitation will come through religion, i study religion so i was fascinated by what does this mean nationally.

think about mass incarceration coming in the 80s 90s, so many people in prison, states cutting budgets, essentially warehousing hundreds of thousands, millions of people in the us, what religious and faith-based groups do is say we can take social provision, we can do the work of the state, do it for free, we are volunteers and argue that they can do it better and more effectively, a lot of faith-based groups run groups like ged, college, mental health, drug addiction, trauma counseling, violence support that the state used to do and one and in spent 36 years in angola prison in louisiana and he said to me people would say when prisoners became religious they would be very skeptical, the ultimate can't. everyone gets religion. now what has changed is politicians see this as

rehabilitative theme, his comment was it is just windowdressing, on the same problem. when i say faith-based, a lot of them are mostly conservative christian groups because churches i set up for this kind of work, they are big mega churches with separate ministries and are often the only church is located near prisons which are often in really rural remote areas so it is not as if you have a glut of unitarians or quakers or wiccans who are practicing in that area. you have southern baptists, conservative nondenominational evangelical christians. i went to the prisons, went to interview people, sat in on classes, visiting different groups that met over a year ago, went to florida and angola prison in louisiana, i went to

texas, california, ohio and ideally, it is to spend time with people and understand the world they live in but in prison that is difficult because you are not in prison, limit access, prison by prison, some prisons, move around and talk to people, the prisons have a reminder with me at all times, i could speak to somebody in a room and sometimes i couldn't and the access varies. i write about that in the book. whatever i said is limited by knowing who i was able to talk to. the women's prison, dedicated the book, they had all read the book and what was nice is a lot of them the this is familiar even though they are not operating under too much religious programming, they said it rings true and i also

connected a lot to people who had been in prison especially where i see my research, talking to them was important and useful but they are not there anymore so they can speak more freely. one of the main drivers of the book was the question i was asked by a man who spent 28 years in angola prison, is named after a plantation, named after the country in africa where the plantation owner believes the strongest and heartiest came from. angola is the site of manhattan and in many ways looks like a plantation, you see people going to the field with hose over their shoulders, this man, a muslim, strong leader in the prison, 28 years, he appealed his case in court, twentysomething times before they let him go and he runs a big organization and he said we know when you're doing this research and want to write this

book it is important but ask volunteers going in are you giving people the help they need or to help you think they need? to ask the faith-based groups why are they there is a simple question but are they there because of the captive population, you can proselytize to and there is no hope, this is the only thing people have, are they trying to do broader work to repeal or change the law that puts so many people in prison, put so many men and women disproportionately african-american, latino, in prison? are they there out of a charitable impulse? are they there to be in prison, change them, radicalize them so they want to be more involved politically, there was an important question that i found but i also found that people in prison use and take part in these for a wide range of reasons. not as simple as nothing, none of this is, a muslim go to a christian college program because the only way to get an

education, or somebody will do from a counseling because that is the only way to get access to mental health services but other people feel these groups provide a sense of kinship, community, for people serving without possibility of parole or long sentences which is true in many places. outside volunteers, only contact with the outside world, people are starving for contact with outsiders, some people who know they are getting out believe faith-based groups help with reentry, providing a job in the community and the churches can do a good job of that. the flipside is you have to adhere to their belief system in order to get that help. one of the criticisms from another man was they should be helping everybody, shouldn't be dependent on you saying i am a born-again christian i believe what you believe, a really

striking case was a story in washington, a woman had been in prison ten years and was getting out into faith-based group said we will pay for your outing and housing is a huge barrier, huge obstacle, she found the housing situation and her landlord happens to be a lesbian and the faith-based groups that we won't pay for you to live in a house with a lesbian landlord so stay in prison longer and you can find another place to live so she found friends and others helped her get her first rent payment but to me that is a clear example of are you helping people or are you creating barriers for people? what do people have to do in order to be helped? in terms of what conflict there are between legal and ethical, particularly christian groups, the first amendment says there is supposed to be a separation of church and state so do they violate the establishment clause?

when you have a group that has taken over an entire wing of the prisoners says you can be in our program and go to classes all day and say this is the only air-conditioned building in the prison and you have access to better work relief, better -- a coercion issue and an issue they are using state resources in order to do the program, in texas the prison was raising $2 million with state and private money to build an extension on the prison to house a new chapel so then you are expanding the faith-based programs. what our goal should be his key people going into prison in the first place. that is one big issue. there is a case against prison fellowship ministry which did this work, he worked in the nixon white house and went to prison for watergate-related crimes and became born again, founded the international prison ministry, they were running an entire wing in an iowa state

prison and all these same issues, we get access to parole in this way. americans united for separation of church and state did sue them in the organization lost, they have to repay the state of iowa but they kept making the argument that they are not partisan, they are faith-based. they are neutral and open to everyone. as a result of the case when you go in these prisons people use the term this is about faith, character, moral rehabilitation, over and over i was told these -- the worst prison in texas is notorious for violence, angola was notorious, the bloodiest prison in america, and people slept with magazines and catalogs strapped to their chest so they wouldn't be stabbed in the night but then the seminary came and it is peaceful and everything is better. a lot of people refute that narrative and say was changing staff because staff had been

there many generations, generations of families, predominantly white staff and african-american population of prisoners, meant changing policies. a lot of prisoners agitating for better rights, better organizing, it becomes very much this is changing the prison itself. is making prisons better. my criticism of the group, should that be our goal? to make prisons better? should our goal be that we eliminate the need for so many prisons in the first place? education is a powerful thing. when you have people who have access to education and other services, they are not going to end up in prison. it is people who drop out of high school, who come, have difficult family situations, living in poverty, you don't have as many -- don't have

people with those advantages going to prison. we need to think about that, faith-based groups say prison is a legitimate thing, it should be here, we will use this space to get more converts, make it easier to run and manage, let's work on changing sentencing laws in louisiana so they don't get life without possibility of parole which is unheard of in any country in the world but is common here. let's change it so we are not sending juveniles to prison. i know a woman who has been in prison 20 years, went to prison for 14, how long do people need to be inside? if you had southern baptists as a whole or part of them saying southern baptists saying you need to end solitary confinement, that is powerful, they can make a powerful religious and ethical case and i don't see them doing that but

there are a few groups predominantly african-american so i think of one, samuel hewitt, they do conferences bringing together faith-based leaders around mass incarceration, the new jim crow, that group is not the one going in fight all the time in doing this ministry work, not on the ground in prison. that perspective needs to be highlighted. there is something gone with the fact the us is so exceptional, the number of people we incarcerate. thinking more broadly and structurally, the way it is, lending their voice, the number of people they have, it is really powerful. >> the recent visit to tacoma with the help of cable partner comcast, a collection of personal stories from boeing employees. how