It's 6 p.m. on a Tuesday, and the chapel at Everglades Correctional Institution is rocking.
Backed by a guitar, bass, drums and keyboard, a burglar is belting out gospel standards, and the 70 prisoners packed into wooden pews are loving it. They're on their feet, singing and banging tambourines.
Even the Jewish inmate in the yarmulke and the Muslim prisoner in the skullcap are soaking up the revival-style warm-up to the main act: a Roman Catholic church service.
Open to all 1,600 inmates in the prison in far western Miami-Dade County, Fla., the service provides a long and loud punctuation mark to the day for those in the institution's nearly 2-year-old faith-based rehabilitation program.
Although none of the 128 inmates in the program is required to attend the service, it is symbolic of the change that is sweeping through Florida's prison system.
On the belief that religion holds the key to turning criminals into law-abiding citizens, the Florida Department of Corrections has established faith-based dormitories at nine institutions throughout the state since 1999.
Efforts to use religion as a rehabilitative tool reached a zenith last month when Lawtey Correctional Institution in north Florida became the first in the nation to be totally turned over to God, a move that Gov. Jeb Bush said would give the prison's 800 inmates the chance "to reflect on the awesome love of our Lord Jesus."
Chaplains at Everglades are quick to point out that inmates also are allowed to reflect on the awesome power of Allah, Muhammad, Buddha or any deity or non-deity their heart desires.
"I don't care whether a person calls themselves a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Martian," says the Rev. Richard Glau, a former stockbroker who is an ordained minister of the Assemblies of the Lord Jesus Christ. "It's a misnomer to call it faith-based. It's really values-based."
Glau's remonstrations aside, faith -- particularly the Christian faith -- drives the program.
For those in the faith-based dorm, there are mandatory religion classes in the morning and afternoon, as well as optional religious services at night.
Back at their dorm, the inmates aren't locked in cells like their 1,500-plus blue-clad counterparts in the prison's other steel-doored cellblocks.
Instead, they are allowed to wander around large open rooms, watch television, play checkers at one wooden picnic table or use another to write letters, do homework or talk about the events of the day.
And in what undoubtedly takes on more significance during the stifling summer months, they do it under ceiling fans, a luxury not afforded inmates in the rest of the prison where air conditioning is as scarce as weekend passes.
"It's a lot different than the other dorms," Glau says.
It is the differences, coupled with the religious bent of the program, that raises the ire of national groups who fight any blurring of constitutional lines separating church and state.
It also has attracted the attention of those who hope such programs will provide the long-elusive solution to revolving doors on prisons throughout the nation.
However, for inmates, whom Glau to make sure they sincerely want to embrace religion, it's a welcome relief from the sterile, tightly-controlled and often brutal life in the typical cellblock.
"I volunteered to get in the program to have peace of mind, to get away from the nonsense in the general population," says Manuel Moran, a 39-year-old Miami man who is serving a 5-year sentence for armed robbery. "I wanted to get away from people who don't want to change their lifestyle -- they talk negatively and act negatively."
As a Muslim, he says, he doesn't get some of the advantages of Christian inmates, but he is philosophical about such oversights in the program he emphatically describes as "beautiful."
The yearlong program, he says, has taught him about personal responsibility, and it's a lesson he obviously takes seriously.
"Ask not what the faith-based program can do for you, ask what you can do for yourself," he said, borrowing from President Kennedy's challenge.
Participants aren't in cells
Hanging out in the faith-based dorm waiting to be called to lunch, 128 men lounge on their bunks, play checkers or watch TV in a small room separated from the main living area by a sheath of glass.
It's laundry day, so the bunks are unmade, exposing thin blue-striped mattresses. The large room with an aging linoleum floor and drab walls is unadorned.
Bunks are shoved together in clusters of four that prison officials call "pods." The cramped configuration is designed to spur camaraderie, missing in typical cellblocks where inmates often distrust, even fear, fellow prisoners, Glau explains.
At 2 p.m., the inmates file into the chapel. Christians take seats in the pews. A handful of Muslim inmates go into a back room. The three Jews go into a nearby library.
Standing at a lectern next to the altar, Glau begins making announcements, then stops.
"Who's singing?" he asks, as a low rumble fills the room. "Who's singing? Go get them, and tell them to stop."
"It's the Muslims," offer a few of the Christian inmates who recognize the telltale sound of the Muslim prayer chants.
"What?" Glau asks, and then it hits him. "Ohhh, the Muslims. Just leave them."
He then tells the group about new programs that will begin soon, including "a powerful, powerful class" dealing with sex addiction.
"If you're a man, you probably have a problem," Glau says, his bluntness generating a few laughs.
After fielding a few questions, including allaying the fears of an inmate who is worried that he could be forced to go to Lawtey if he is deemed a good candidate, Glau pops a video into a TV in front of the altar.
Produced by Evangelical Explosion International, the prison ministry arm of the vast evangelical empire of Fort Lauderdale preacher Rev. D. James Kennedy, the message of the video is simple.
After singing a hymn and offering a prayer, the speaker tells inmates how to give testimony about their religious faith to others: "Millions of people go to church but fail to communicate that they're going to heaven and have eternal life."
In the adjacent room, the six Muslims listened to their own video, and the Jews passed the hour reading and writing.
Normally, Glau says, volunteers lead a discussion. But the volunteers were out of town, so a video had to suffice.
And, he says, it served its purpose.
"To have over 100 inmates of all types sit quietly for an hour is a miracle," Glau says. "Praise Jesus."
Such blatant proselytizing in a tax-supported prison is anathema to those who believe the Constitution calls for strict separation of church and state.
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says such programs simply have no place in prison. His organization has sued the state of Iowa over a similar faith-based program, claiming it illegally forces inmates to accept a state-sanctioned religion, namely Christianity.
Attorneys at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a public interest law firm that fights to ensure people have the ability to practice religion, scoff at Lynn's claims.
"They believe religion should be kept in a closet," said Derek Gaubatz, an attorney for the fund. "We believe that religion deserves to be in the public square. Government should not treat religion as toxic."
Further, Florida officials say, the program at Everglades and other state prisons are different than those in Iowa, which are strictly Christian.
"Being Christian is never a criteria to be in a faith-based program," says Alex Lam, an affable Chinese-born Roman Catholic deacon who is head chaplain at Everglades. "The programs we've tried to set up are as varied as possible, and inmates are not forced to go to any program."
Because all but 11 of the 128 inmates in Everglades' faith-based program are Christian, the main lectures are Christian-based. But efforts are made to bring in volunteers and have programs for those who subscribe to other beliefs -- from Seventh Day Adventist to Judaism to Asatru, an ancient Norse religion that is based on paganism.
Still, volunteers who serve non-Christians at Everglades say the Christian bias is inescapable.
Rabbi Menachem Katz, who has organized volunteers to visit Jewish inmates at Everglades since it opened in 1995, says he steers Jewish inmates away from the faith-based program.
"The entire faith-based program is essentially a Christian program," says Katz, director of Miami's Aleph Institute, a national Jewish prison outreach program. "The people who run these programs are Christian, and the background of all the programs have religious connotations."
He said he would like the state to establish a Jewish faith-based program where the 300 practicing Jewish inmates in the state could be housed.
But, he said, he isn't making any demands; he recognizes state officials will argue that there are financial constraints.
And, Glau said, such constraints are real.
Budget cuts eliminate staff
One of the reasons Glau has to rely so heavily on volunteers is that even as Gov. Bush sings the praises of faith-based programs, state budget cuts have wiped out the program's staff.
Instead of having a separate chaplain to run the faith-based dorm as the legislature promised, Glau runs it in addition to tending to the spiritual needs of all 1,600 inmates. Two secretaries, who helped line up volunteers and programs for inmates, also were lost to budget cuts that wiped $21 million from the corrections department, costing it 339 jobs statewide.
Consequently, it's difficult to provide the types and variety of services that are needed, Lamb says.
Still, attorney Gaubatz argues, even if no effort were made to accommodate the needs of non-Christian inmates, the program still would cut constitutional muster.
"As long as there's no coercion and as long as inmates have a choice, there doesn't need to be a program for every conceivable religion out there," he says.
But do faith-based programs work?
While research is ongoing, some who have analyzed such programs warn that people shouldn't get their hopes up.
"I've been studying this kind of thing for a long time, and everyone always hopes for a magic bullet, and there just isn't one," says Todd Clear, a distinguished professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
Still, state officials counter, they didn't launch the program on a wing and a prayer.
A 1998 state study found that inmates who participated in intense three-day retreats run by the Christian-based Kairos Prison Ministry were 33 percent less likely to be reimprisoned. Further, there was a 57 percent drop in recividism among inmates who participated in Kairos programs after they left prison, state officials found.
An inner-faith arm of Kairos is paid roughly $45,000 a year to run faith-based dorms at two state institutions; the rest are run by prison chaplains.
However, critics point out the study wasn't subject to outside review, a standard requirement for the results to have validity.
They liken it to a University of Pennsylvania study that initially lauded the results of a Texas faith-based prison program run by Watergate conspirator turned prison minister Charles Colson. Outside reviewers later found that inmates who participated in the program were more likely to return to prison.
Some inmates say their time would be better spent learning skills that could help them adjust to life outside.
Jeffrey Felder, 49, a West Palm Beach man who is now on his fifth tour through the state prison system, said a life skills class he attended at the Palm Beach County Jail while awaiting trial helped him immeasurably.
"I didn't know how to balance a checkbook. I didn't know how to call the electric company to put the lights on. I didn't know how to buy a car," said Felder, who is serving a five-year sentence for burglary.
"The spiritual part gives you confidence, but you need skills to survive," he says.
The faith-based program, prison officials say, is aimed at giving inmates values they can fall back on when times get tough.
Glau acknowledges that studies may never prove faith-based programs work. He doesn't even believe all come to receive God -- some come for free food, the music or air conditioning.
But he believes in the power of God to change men's lives. Drawing on the biblical parable of the lost sheep, he says he isn't trying to change thousands.
"My goal is reaching just one person with the truth that will change his life."