Corrections_Today_Spring_2026_Vol.88_No.1

COMMITTEES

Faith-based prison programs: Needs, challenges and opportunities Faith-Based Committee By Joe Pryor I n 2008, while serving as the Chief Chaplain for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, I had the useful work. Sound familiar? Many of today’s correctional practices can be traced to the Great Code. A component of the Great

William Penn, Pennsylvania’s first governor, turned his own experience with imprisonment into the “Great Code,” a system that limited executions, required meaningful work and shaped modern corrections.

opportunity to testify before the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Below is a portion of my testimony, edited for the purposes of this article. Religion in the American justice system has its roots in the colonial period of the late 1600s and early 1700s. Colonists adhered to the cor rectional techniques inherited from England and based on a Puritan philosophy. Crime was viewed as a sin against God, and the criminal was seen as a person cursed by the devil. Until the 1770s, imprisonment was for those waiting to learn their punishment or for the poor who could not afford their fines or debts. Quakers introduced the practice of incarceration as a punishment for crime. William Penn, the first Governor of Pennsylvania and a Quaker himself, had experienced the harshness and brutality of jail having been imprisoned for his own religious beliefs. As a result, he developed what was known as the “Great Code.” Under this code, capital punishment was only for murderers. The government paid for the food and the housing of prison ers and inmates were required to do

Code required prisoners to attend Sunday services and encourage them to read Scriptures. The goal was to reform the individual through helping them see the error of their ways, thereby, preparing them for a suc cessful reentry into society. So, the concept of reentry preparation through faith is certainly not new. In 1787, and I love the name of this group, The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of

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Public Prisons advocated to raise the humane conditions of prisons. The organization sought better sanita tion standards, quality healthcare, the separation of inmates by the severity of their offense and a pris oner’s right to community religious leaders. Again, sound familiar.

today and has been infused with new energy over the past quarter century with passages of the Sec ond Chance and First Step Acts. The right to practice one’s religion during incarceration is pivotal to this reentry effort and is protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution. While over the decades correc tional systems have evolved in many ways, religion has always played a role in the treatment and rehabilita tion of prisoners. Laws such as The

Federal rules change faith-based reentry

The national focus on faith-based reentry programs is still flourishing

Corrections Today | Spring 2026

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