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"Fledgling
group ministers to Muslims behind bars" |
Richmond
Times-Dispatch
By Frank Green |
Published:
January 4, 2010 |
A
seven-year-old prison chaplain group recently was
awarded a one-of-its-kind, $25,000 state subcontract
to minister to a rapidly growing faith behind bars:
Islam.
But the all-volunteer Muslim Chaplain Services wants
more state funding so it can hire imams to serve
as prison staff chaplains, as do Protestant clergy.
"We just want a level playing field,"
said Carroll Abdul-Malik, the group's president. |
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Photo:
P. Kevin Morley / Times Dispatch |
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The
Chaplain Service of the Churches of Virginia, a Protestant group
established in 1920, has the full, $780,000 contract with the
Virginia Department of Corrections to administer religious programs
in prisons for inmates of all faiths.
Relations between the two chaplain groups are cordial, and they
agree on the need for Islamic experts in prisons.
So, too, do some secular experts with concerns beyond the spiritual.
Mark Hamm, a terrorism expert with Indiana State University,
conducted a study on Muslims in prison for the National Institute
of Justice and said that "Islam, by all accounts, is the
fastest-growing religion among prisoners in the Western world,
including the United States."
And a key finding of a 2006 national study co-authored by the
University of Virginia's Critical Incident Analysis Group, a
think tank on national threats, was that "the inadequate
number of Muslim religious service providers increases the risk
of radicalization."
Hamm said it is estimated that up to 40,000 of the 2.4 million
prisoners in the U.S. convert to Islam each year. Muslim Chaplain
Services believes there are 1,700 to 2,500 Muslims in Virginia's
32,000-inmate system. Prison authorities do not dispute that
estimate. |
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After
the Sept. 11 attacks, some in Congress and elsewhere grew concerned
about the potential for the spread of jihadism along with Islam
in the nation's prisons.
But Hamm found that "overall, Islam has a beneficial effect
on inmates. Most of these inmates come to prison with little
or no . . . spiritual grounding whatsoever." Islam offers
order to their lives and a sense of identity and belonging,
he said.
The "radicalization" that occurs often is the result
of "prison or jailhouse Islam," twisted versions of
the faith spread by those who are not necessarily well-informed
about the tenets of Islam and some of whom have gang-related
or other nonreligious agendas, Hamm said.
Asghar Goraya, executive director of Muslim Chaplain Services,
says Islam is a religion of moderation and tolerance, not extremism.
A goal of his group is educating believers who may have been
given incorrect information by other well-meaning but misinformed
inmates. |
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In
addition, Sa'ad El-Amin, a former Richmond lawyer on the Muslim
chaplain group's board of directors, believes more needs to
be done to foster communication between staff and Muslim inmates.
"We see an accident, a train wreck ahead, if this thing
is not resolved," El-Amin said.
El-Amin and Abdul-Malik, are former inmates themselves. El-Amin
surrendered his City Council seat in July 2003, pleading guilty
to a federal tax-fraud conspiracy charge. He served 32 months
and was released in August 2006.
Abdul-Malik was released in 1978 after serving seven years for
robbery. "Before I went in, I was first kin to an atheist,"
he said. Then he converted while behind bars. "It changed
my life and I've been out for 31 years and I've been a volunteer
in prison for 29 years." |
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In
2006, Gene Johnson, director of the Virginia Department of Corrections,
invited the Muslim group to brief officials in prisons across
the state about rituals, prayers, holy days, dietary regulations
and other pertinent aspects of the Islamic faith.
"The sessions have been well-received with lots of positive
feedback," said Larry Traylor, a department spokesman.
Goraya said the group has worked to clear up misconceptions
and head off problems. For example, he said, "a question
came up during the training: 'Is it prohibited for a Muslim
male to obey the orders of a female?"
Many corrections officers are women, and male Muslim inmates
must obey them, Goraya said.
But some Muslim inmates have the wrong idea. Often, he said,
the cultural traditions of patriarchal societies that practice
Islam get mixed up with the tenets of the faith. |
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The
Muslim group, founded in 2003, has a dozen volunteers -- none
of them imams.
When an inmate needs an imam, efforts are made to get one, but
that can be difficult because the Islamic faith leaders are
not compensated for travel to a prison, Goraya said. "They
have to work for a living," he added.
Chaplain Service of the Churches of Virginia, supported by various
Protestant churches, individuals and foundations, started working
in prisons in 1920, at no cost to the state. In 2002, the General
Assembly began appropriating money from the inmate commissary
fund to help.
The arrangement is an unusual one, because Virginia may be the
only prison system, or among just a handful of state systems,
without professional chaplains.
The money comes out of the pockets of inmates from commissary
purchases of chips, sodas and other items. The Department of
Corrections is concerned that so much money is being taken out
that the commissary fund, which is used for other inmate needs,
that it could be depleted. |
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Cecil
McFarland, the Protestant group's director, said that in addition
to the $780,000 from the commissary fund, the group expects
to receive about $500,000 in non-inmate funds this year, lower
than in past years because of the economy.
Among other things, the money is used to staff adult prisons
with 13 full-time and 19 part-time chaplains, and three part-time
chaplains for juvenile correctional facilities.
"We've been working with Asghar Goraya for years,"
said McFarland of the Muslim group, which has the only chaplaincy
subcontract. McFarland's group coordinates religious programs
for inmates of all other faiths, including Catholics and Jews.
McFarland said his governing board is not concerned with money
going to an Islamic group because "this relieves our chaplains
of a lot of responsibilities. . . . They have assumed the responsibility
of serving the Muslim population in prison."
"It's really a good thing for everybody," he said. |
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But
the problem, as Muslim Chaplain Services sees it, is that $25,000
-- used primarily to pay for religious literature -- is not
enough to support a single staff Muslim chaplain, and the Protestant
group will not hire one.
In addition to the $25,000, the Muslim group also receives about
$12,000 to $15,000 a year via fundraisers. But virtually all
expenses come out of the pockets of volunteers. They also operate
a five-person halfway house in Richmond.
Goraya said there are many situations in which even the most
well-meaning staff and Christian clergy cannot help a Muslim
inmate. Full-time Muslim chaplains are needed in prisons just
as Christian ones are, he said.
The group asked the Department of Corrections for $611,560 to
get Muslim staff chaplains in prisons but was turned down. |
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On
Sept. 3, the department modified its contract with the Protestant
group so that it could receive the $25,000 subcontract. The
Muslim group says it has spoken with some area legislators who
told them it is unlikely the General Assembly will find more
money for them.
Goraya and Abdul-Malik said they now are considering asking
for some of the money -- $4.6 million in the year that ended
June 30 -- made on surcharges imposed on inmate telephone calls.
That money, however, always has gone directly into the state
general fund.
They are also considering a lawsuit, El-Amin said. "What
you have is the [Department of Corrections] treating Islam like
it's a second-class religion because we're not on equal footing
fundingwise, or staffwise, or accesswise," he said.
Muslim inmates buy goods in prison commissaries, too, El-Amin
said.
Hamm, the terrorism expert, said a good chaplain of any faith
can make a large difference in a prison. "It seems a shame
that any state doesn't have a paid cadre of prison chaplains.
"I've been in some prisons where the chapel is hopping
between 8 a.m. and whenever the yard closes -- one activity
after another, Indians, Muslims, Christians," he said.
"And then I've been in other prisons where the chapel is
a ghost yard. It just sits there. You wonder who's minding the
store and what lessons there are here to learn on how to run
a chaplaincy." |
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