Dear Mr Quayle,

I am Secretary to Isle of Man Freethinkers, the group for Manx atheists, agnostics and humanists, and write to express our concern at an issue raised by the government’s new homelessness project worker, Fiona Robinson, at a recent meeting with statutory bodies to determine the guidelines for a homelessness database.

I was present at the meeting, having made it my business to push for such a database as a member of the steering committee to establish the local housing charity, Kemmyrk, as I believe that until the specific nature and scope of Manx homelessness has been established the government cannot plan effectively to eradicate it.

As I understand it, two Muslim remand prisoners could not get places at the island’s bail hostel, David Gray House, and this centred on their concerns that they would be required to join in Christian worship at the hostel.

Sadly this is not the first time I have heard suggestions of a mandatory requirement to join in religious activity at the hostel - though it is the first time I have heard of a case concerning members of a non-Christian faith rather than straightforward non-believers. In the last ten years I have heard numerous stories that both remand prisoners awaiting trial and those leaving prison and trying to re-enter the community were encouraged to believe that participation in worship and a declaration of Christian faith would ensure a good report from David Gray staff and allied government services.

One hopes this is a one off case, and that the previous stories simply involve a ‘folk myth’ which has grown – perhaps as the result of poorly explained procedures. Having both friends and relatives who helped in the set-up of the David Gray project it is hard for me to believe these parlour games are played by genuine Salvationists in a cheap attempt to boost their congregation. Nevertheless, the rumour is now in the public domain and so we feel obliged to seek a reassurance from you that the problem is finally recognised and being addressed.

We hope you agree that there is something deeply unsettling about the idea of a prisoner being encouraged to betray or lie about sincere beliefs as the only way to ensure a sympathetic court hearing or proper help to re-establish himself in the community having served his fair sentence. As several at the meeting said, there could also be serious repercussions for the image of the Manx justice system should this get into the press - especially off-island.

In the circumstances, we believe it is now also important to establish if the Manx government have plans to follow the UK in imposing faith based rehabilitation programmes on prisoners, as suggested in the UK’s National Offender Management Service report of November 2007 entitled ‘Believing We Can’.

Given both my personal knowledge of ideas aired to David Gray supporters in 2003 for the hostel’s future role and recent suggestions that probation and other support services to the prison might be combined at some point – including possible involvement of private or voluntary sector agencies – it is apparent that a handover of some services to a faith-led agency such as the Salvation Army might be a ‘natural’ next step.

We have to advise caution, and to bluntly state that we would view such a step as a blatent abuse of human rights, as would international human rights agencies.

While it is reasonable for a prisoner who sincerely follows or adopts the Christian faith to receive support from a local church in changing his lifestyle this surely should be a voluntary initiative, not a state-subsidised perk. No genuine community organisation expects a government handout for doing it, and no honest one holds itself out to be ‘the professionals’.

On the evidence of church records, less than 7% of the Manx community regularly attend church and, unfortunately, analysis of faith affiliations stated by offenders even suggests that Christians are more – not less – likely to offend than the rest of us! For this reason alone we have to disagree with the ‘common sense’ notion that religious intervention in the prison service helps reduce crime and reoffending. Having made some study of the matter we have to add that all the UK Home Office research and experience of the last decade supports our view.

Consider as an example the Inner Change Freedom Initiative at Dartmoor Prison. This failed experiment was ultimately controlled by Prison Fellowship Ministries, a large US evangelical organisation founded by Charles W. Colson. If his name is vaguely familiar to you that may be because some years ago he served 7 months for his part in the Watergate affair. The first call for this disastrous and damaging programme to be abolished actually came from the chaplain general himself, Venerable William Noblett, who, we gather, was distinctly underwhelmed when he had the chance to observe it in action.

Prior to this, you could also consider the example of the Kainos project – another discontinued UK evangelical prison initiative, which has been mentioned to me as a possible model for the development of activities at David Gray House in conjunction with other other local ‘faith-led’ partners.

From my own research I found that the predecessor to Kainos had run without obvious success, and in 1999 a condition of continued support was that it should operate under independent evaluation and without further public funding for four years. In fact, it ran out of money in two after pinning hopes of future funding on a successful evaluation planned for 2001.

The independent review was to be paid for by Kainos as part of their funding agreement. This causes a problem for anyone wanting to see what it said, as it is their property and they seem reluctant for the public to see it. Luckily, an executive summary was required by the parliamentary committee considering their funding, and was reproduced on the House of Lords website account of their proceedings.

In brief, a comparison between those who had been through Kainos and 14,000 prisoners serving similar sentences in similar prisons found no significant difference in re-offending rates. By comparison, prisoners on other, more secular, rehabilitation programmes were on average 10% less likely to offend again.

In the executive summary, the Prison Service Management Board also expressed strong reservations about exposing prisoners to any ‘intensive religiously based interventions in prison by any faith group’. It is of significance to our original concern that a particular worry to Ken Sutton, the Inspector of Prisons at the time, was that Muslims had strong grounds to claim ‘favouritism’ shown to Christian prisoners.

We are facing new challenges in the 21^st century, such as the integration of non-Christian faiths into the Manx community. We do not underestimate the task of your department in rising to these challenges, but respectfully suggest that trying to recreate a mythical ‘golden age’ with greater church attendance (albeit never from personal choice) is not the answer. This island must grasp the nettle, and must deal with 21^st century criminal trends using the best professional programmes available, not cost-cutting alternatives run by voluntary sector amateurs – however genuine and willing to help.

We hope you will agree, and look forward to evidence that our concerns are receiving your serious attention.

Yours Sincerely,

Stuart Hartill

Secretary

Isle of Man Freethinkers