Fear, Florida, and Faith-Based Prisons

Crosby, now an ordained minister with a doctorate in theology from Jacksonville Theological Seminary, told me that he didn’t create the faith-based prison to encourage religious socialization per se; rather, he thought that the faith-based prison would be the most effective way to reintroduce inmate rehabilitation into a correctional department that previously all but gutted the rehabilitative programs that were common during the progressive era of Florida’s prisons, which began in earnest in the 1950s and ended in the early 1980s. During this progressive era, prison administrators believed that inmate rehabilitation was the biggest service they could provide. They knew that most inmates would leave prison someday, and they wanted to make sure that inmates left Florida’s prisons with the appropriate tools to live productive, crime-free lives after their release.