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Iowa prison ministry ruled unconstitutional: Decision seen as blow to faith-based initiatives

In what could be a major setback for the government’s ability to fund religious charities, a federal judge has ruled against an Iowa program designed to rehabilitate prisoners through Christianity.

Federal judge Robert Pratt of Des Moines ruled June 2 that the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, operating at Iowa’s Newton Correctional Facility, violates the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.

Mission in Missouri: Churches and immigrants

In 1994, things began to look up for Milan, Missouri, a remote, rural community of 2,000 that had been struggling for years with a declining farm economy and weak job market. Premium Standard Farms (PSF), the second-largest pork production company in the U.S., opened a state-of-the-art packing plant in Milan’s rural enterprise zone. Today the company raises 2 million hogs annually on 38,000 acres of rolling northwest Missouri hills, then brings them to Milan for processing.