A. Yes. The wing of the prison used for InnerChange was formerly an “honor unit” designed to reward inmates for good behavior. InnerChange inmates have separate public bathrooms, keys to their cells and greater mobility within the unit. InnerChange inmates have guaranteed prison jobs and receive payment for being in the program. They get access to a special building that houses a computer room and music room. They are given more visits with family. Perhaps most significantly, InnerChange participants have access to activities that give them a much better chance of obtaining parole than others.

A. Only in a narrow and technical sense. The InnerChange program is saturated with evangelical Christianity. Charles Colson, the founder of the program, has stated, We run this program so that through the Gospel, people's lives might be changed…so that the world around us will see the transforming power of Jesus Christ and be drawn to accept him as Lord. Members of non-evangelical and non-Christians faiths simply do not feel welcome in this program. Inmates of other faiths who do join are pressured to change their religion and can be ejected from the program if they express disagreement with InnerChange's religious teachings.

Americans United has uncovered several instances of bias against non-evangelical religions. A textbook used by InnerChange warns inmates to be wary of Islam, Hinduism, Unitarianism, Jehovah Witnesses, Christian Science, Buddhism, New Age faiths, Bahaism and Native American religions. Inmates have complained that InnerChange staff members have made derogatory comments about Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and other religions.

A. InnerChange has required participants to complete a "Belief Survey" requiring them to give their views on premarital sex, homosexuality, failure to attend church and failure to accept Christ as your personal savior. The survey makes it clear that these actions are considered sinful by InnerChange.

Former participants have charged that the program teaches hostility toward homosexuals. Others have noted that the program teaches that men should run households and that wives must submit to their husbands. InnerChange uses a manual that tells male prison inmates that the Bible commands, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church…." The manual goes on to call husbands "the spiritual decision-makers or ‘heads' of the family" and advises, "Wives are to submit to their husbands in this, just as the church submits to God."

A. InnerChange's claims of fantastic success rates in rehabilitating prisoners have never been substantiated by objective research. In 2003, Colson released a study purporting to show that inmates who went through InnerChange returned to prison at a much lower rate than those who did not. But Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California-Los Angeles, examined the study and found it to be statistically invalid. Colson had excluded prisoners who failed to finish the program, leaving him only with success stories. When all of the prisoners were added back in, InnerChange participants actually returned to prison at a slightly higher rate than a control group.

Moreover, evidence unearthed in the lawsuit shows that InnerChange has, in order to improve its statistics, expelled from its program inmates who are likely to recidivate or who did so before graduating.

A. Not at all. Americans United opposes only the taxpayer funding and support of InnerChange, and the state's discriminatory provision of special benefits to inmates who submit to the program's religious indoctrination. We support the right of inmates to have access to worship and spiritual counseling. We believe, however, that such programs must not be sponsored by the government.

A. President Bush was a big booster of Charles Colson's prison program while he was governor of Texas. As president, Bush has aggressively extended the "faith-based" approach into a wide array of social services. AU's lawsuit is a direct challenge to the principles involved in the Bush approach. AU asserts that the government may not use tax funds to underwrite social programs that are infused with sectarian dogma.