Iowa Ends Controversial Faith-Based Prison Program

Iowa officials have notified Prison Fellowship Ministires that its faith-based InnerChange program will be ended in Iowa prisons in mid-March. Sunday's Des Moines Register reported that under the state's contract with the program, the state can teminiate it if enrollment falls belaow 60 inmates. That will happen when 27 prisoners graduate from the program on March 14. Last year the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the program could no longer be run on government funding. Since then it has been funded privately, but the state ended new enrollments by prisoners in the program.