you're going to treat me with respect. i'm going to respect you, but i'm not going to take any. i think that helped me not only maintain solace, but it gave me a beautiful outlook on people. and i would just say respect is what i bring to life. i just feel good about the people i need and make it the best counsel in the world to try and keep you balanced and recognize you have a right to do this. fight for it. it is worth it. >> next, from book tvs recent visit to tacoma, washington from a university professor tanya irving examines the role in the

u.s. prison system. >> the name of the book is called god in captivity in an age of mass incarceration. i started to write it because i used to live in new york city and i taught at a women's prison there on the west side highway. when i was going to teach a college class, the other people there were prisoners of religious volunteers and there were so many of them. around that time in early 2003, someone sent me a small article from "the new york times" that in florida and jeb bush is governor he had taken state prisons and transform them into institutions so this whole idea that rehabilitation will come through religion and i studied religion so i was fascinated by what does this mean nationally. you think about mass incarceration. we had a huge spike in the 80s and 90s are basically states cutting budget and essentially

we're hoping hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people in the u.s. what religious and faith-based groups to we can do it and they can do it better and more fact every to college, mental health, drug addiction, violence support, that's what the state used to do. one man imprisoned spent 36 years in angola prison in louisiana and he said to me, for years people would say when prisoners became religious, they would be very skeptical. it the ultimate crime. everybody gets through this. now the prison authorities and politicians see that as a legitimate and rehabilitative scheme. his comment to me was it's just

window dressing on the same problem. when i say faith is, that's a term of groups used. they are mostly conservative christian groups because the churches are set up for this kind of work. they're often big mega-church is in or located near which are often in rural areas. if you have unitarians were quakers or buddhist who are practicing in that area come in basically a southern baptist, nondenominational. i went down to the prisons. i was able to interview people. i sat in on classes, spent time visiting different groups, so i went to florida. i went to angola in the women's prison in texas in the research i do is to spend time with people and understand the world

they live in. a imprisoned, that's very difficult because you are not in prison and they limit access to the you can talk to. some i could move around and talk to people, others they had a binder with me at all times are sometimes i could speak to someone in a room. sometimes they couldn't. and so the access really varies. i read about that in the book, so whatever i said, is limited by who i am, who i was able to talk to. i just came back from the women's prison i dedicated the book to the students i work there and they all read the book. a lot of them see this is familiar to them even though they're not operating under too much religious programming. they said it brings true. a lot of people formerly in

prison. talking to them what's important and useful because they are not there anymore so they could 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. many people know it is named after -- a slave plantation named after the country in africa for this labor plantation owner believed that the strongest and heartiest plays came from. angola is the size of manhattan and still many ways to see google going into the field with hose over their soldier, and so forth. this man was muslim. he was a very strong leader in the prison. 28 years he appealed his case in court. 20 times before they let them go. he said ask when you are doing this research anyone to write this book, it's important to ask the volunteers going in, are you giving people the help they need to help you think you need.

to ask why are they there is a simple question. are they there because it's a captive population that you can proselytize, to when there's really no hope for this is the only thing people have. are they doing broader work to repeal or change the laws that put so many people in prison, so many men and women who are disproportionately african-american or latino imprisoned. are they there out of charitable impulse? does being imprisoned change them or article i found so they want to be in baltimore politically. that was an important question i found, but i also found people in prison use and take part in these are really wide range of reasons. it is not simple as none of this is, but they go -- a muslim will go into a christian college program because it the only way to get an education or somebody will do trauma counseling because that is the only way to

get access to mental health services. other people feel these groups provide a real sense of kinship, community for people serving without the possibility of parole which is true in many places. outside volunteers is sometimes the only contact with the outside world and people are serving countrymen starving. someone know they are getting out believed faith-based groups will help them with reentry, with, you know, providing a job and i think the churches can do a can do a good job of that. the flipside of that is you have to adhere to their belief system in order to get that help. one of the criticisms from another man that i heard is they should be helping everybody. it shouldn't be dependent on you same him a born-again christian or believe what you believe. a really striking case is a story here in washington, a woman imprisoned for 10 years is getting out in a faith-based groups that will pay for your

housing. housing is a huge barrier coming huge obstacle. she's had great come upon the situation in her them are it happened to be a and the christian said we won't pay for you to live in a house with a landlord. so stay in prison longer until you find another place to live. so she found her first rent payment, but to me that's a really clear example of again, are you helping people or you creating barriers for people and what do they have to do to be able to be helped. in terms of what kind of conflicts there are between the legal and ethical groups and christian groups in the prison, there's the first amendment that they are supposed to have a separation of church and state. do they violate the establishment cause when you have a group taking over an entire wing of a person. 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 better access to work release and its sword of the coercion issue and it's clearly an issue they are using 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 help build a new chapel. then you are expanding the prisons to expand a faith-based program, which our goal should be used to keep people from going into prison in the first place and keep people out. that is one big issue. there is a lawsuit case against the ministry which is a big organization that's done this work. he worked in the nixon white house, worked for watergate related crimes and became born again. they were running an entire wing and in bioassay prison. you get a better tv in your style, and get access to parole

in this way, so americans united for the separation of church and state gives to them in the organization lost. they have to repay the state of iowa. they kept making the argument that they are not partisan, they are faith-based. their new show on open to everyone. the result of the case when you go in this present, this is about faith, character, moral rehabilitation. over and over i was told these are the worst prisons in texas, torres for violence, people slimed with magazines and catalogs struck to their chests said they would be stabbed with a knife. but then seminary came minutes safer and peaceful and everything is better. a lot of people refuse bad to say actually it was changing staff because the staff had been there for many generations of families in a predominately white staff and african-american

population of prisoners, not changing policies, a lot of prisoners advocating for better right, better organizing among themselves. so you know, i think it does become that this is changing the prison itself. it is making prisons better. my criticism of the group is should that be our goal to make residents better or should our group be that we eliminate the need for so many in the first place? education is a powerful thing because when you have people who have access to education and other kinds of services, they are not going to end up in prison. they will come from difficult family situations in poverty. you don't have people with those kinds of advantages in prison to think about that.

and the prison is a legitimate thing that they will use this space to get to make it easier to run and manage them they are the ones who could be powerfully seine pivots work on changing tendency among so many people don't get life in possibility of parole, which is another incentive than every other country in the world. but it is common here. so we are not sending juveniles to prison. i know a woman who's been in prison twentysomething years. how long do people need to be inside? i do think if you had the southern baptist as a whole or part of them say we the southern baptists are saying you need to add solitary confinement, that is powerful. they can make a powerful religious and ethical case and i don't always see us doing that. there are a few groups that are predominately african-american.

so i think one in particular would do conferences. they are bringing together faith-based leaders around mass incarceration. but that is not the one going inside all the time. and they think that it needs to be highlighted. we want to change the system. there's something really wrong with the fact the u.s. is so exceptional in the number of people incarcerated. more probably a structurally about the system and why it is the way it is in lending their voice to a number of people they have as part of their constituents to that would be really powerful. >> enough for my recent visit to tacoma, washington, a collection of personal stories from boeing employees about how workplace changes have impact their lives. >> the name of theo