Religion Dispatches posts an interview with law professor Winnifred Fallers Sullivan about his new book Prison Religion: Faith-based Reform and the Constitution , a recounting of the Americans United v. Prison Fellowship Ministries trial in which Sullivan served as an expert witness.
The book presents the testimony of the witnesses in the case and sets that testimony in the context of American penal and religious history. It addresses the convergence of two distinctive features of the United States: a place where a higher percentage of its population is incarcerated than anywhere else in the world, and a place that is often described as very religious. Prison and evangelical religion have been linked throughout US history. Both are fundamental to US identity. Is their union an establishment of religion? What is the alternative?
The judge in the case agreed with the plaintiffs, and Sullivan, invalidating Iowa's use of what amounted to a state-sponsored religious program.
