FRED DE SAM LAZARO, correspondent: With its high walls, gates, and rituals, the Bhopal central jail looks forbidding, almost medieval. However, inside is a world of routine and order. It starts with the morning roll call for some 2000 men—-about a third more than the prison is supposed to hold—some of the most notorious convicts in the surrounding region. As in every prison there’s a hierarchy here, a subgroup of elite inmates. But these guys have earned the distinction not for being tough, but for being calm. In the prison’s main hall, some 150 men are led in the deep breathing yoga exercises by one of their own. For much of the morning, they’ll go through the whole cycle of yoga’s asanas, or postures, and breathing exercises that cover the entire body.

BINKU TOMAR (prison inmate convicted of murder): I feel healthy when I do yoga, and I don’t have any violent thoughts. It helps me have positive thoughts.

SURAJ BOSE (prison inmate convicted of murder): In the past, before yoga, my mind used to wander a lot. I used to be like a bird in a cage. I used to have a lot of anger.

DE SAM LAZARO: Both men are serving life sentences here for murder—in Tomar’s case, multiple murders.

BOSE: I get a lot of peace of mind after doing yoga. Whenever I do yoga exercises I really feel at peace. You really want to be at peace here.

DE SAM LAZARO: And they have one more significant incentive. For every three months in the yoga program, their jail sentences are reduced by 15 days. In India, even people sentenced to life can have their sentences reduced to as little as 14 years for good behavior, an evaluation largely in the hands of prison staff.

BOSE: I am hopeful. I’ve done my crime, and I have to do my sentence. It will be up to the officers to decide if my sentence will be reduced.

DE SAM LAZARO: For their part, prison officials say yoga, which was introduced into this facility two years ago, has brought them peace, too.

LALJI MISHRA (Prison Superintendent): We used to have a lot of conflicts, but we don’t see very many now. People are respectful of each other.

DE SAM LAZARO: Jail superintendent Mishra says the yoga program is being expanded across the prison system. Not only does it calm the jail atmosphere, he says, but it may also help thin the ranks through early release of those who’ve completed a course in yoga. He says the prison system in this central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh is overcrowded and understaffed.

MISHRA: We have 120 jails and 17 doctors for about 35,000 inmates. We have 40 health workers, but that’s not enough staff to look after the health of all the prisoners as is called for by the national human rights committee. We need to find a way to gradually release more of them.

DE SAM LAZARO: Prison officials say very few inmates who go through the yoga program have resorted to crime after their release. So the key question is: has yoga transformed these men—and how?

The most common definitions describe yoga as a system of exercises dating back 3000 years, practiced as a part of the Hindu discipline to promote control of the body and mind. At the prison, inmates also come from Muslim, Christian, and other faiths, so the superintendent says yoga is never presented as an extension of Hinduism. The majority of inmates here are Hindu.

MISHRA: Anyone who breathes can do yoga. If you breathe, yoga belongs to you.

DE SAM LAZARO: But yoga scholars say it involves much more than breathing exercises.

KAMLESH MISHRA (Yoga Scholar): If you practice yoga, it’s not just about making your body fit. It’s about a changing your mental state, your consciousness. The breathing exercises help increase oxygen flow to the vital organs. It stimulates the nervous system, brings sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems into balance. The whole way how you look at the work, look at other people, is transformed.

TOMAR: I can control my anger now. I want to go away from crime. I want to join the mainstream of society and support my parents.

BOSE: I’m not sure what kind of work I’ll get, but I know I’ll continue to do yoga.

DE SAM LAZARO: Whether and how long that resolve will endure is the key question. In other words, are minds truly transformed? Even a few inmates confess they’re not sure.

PRASHANTH TIWARI (prison inmate convicted of murder): I am definitely a changed person. I have good thoughts, but what about the others, those who would attack me? What are their thoughts? I would not be the first attack someone, but I would be the second if someone attacked me.

DE SAM LAZARO: There’s no hard evidence yet on the impact of yoga on recidivism, but prison officials say with the health and management benefits they can see no downside to a morning yoga class.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro in Bhopal, India.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: This is a reentry program for inmates about ready to be released back to their communities. It’s funded by the state of Hawaii and the social ministry of the Catholic Archdiocese of Honolulu. Angela Anderson is one of the fortunate participants. She’s been serving time for drug abuse.

ANGELA ANDERSON: When I had got out of jail before, you know, I went directly back to drugs, because that’s really all there was. But here I got structure. I made great friends. You have classes that you have to attend to. You have to live to a schedule.

SEVERSON: What it does is lessen the odds that she’ll go back to prison. In 2009, the latest statistics available, there were 2.3 million Americans serving time behind bars, the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. Since the early 1970s, the prison and jail population has increased by 700 percent. Now, faced with the staggering costs of incarceration, about $55 billion a year, politicians are asking community and faith-based volunteers to help the reentry process for the hundreds of thousands of ex-cons who are coming home. The state of Hawaii is no exception. To reduce the spiraling costs of incarceration, a number of states started exporting inmates to cheaper localities, often to other states and quite often to private for-profit prisons. Over the years, Hawaii has shipped thousands of inmates to the mainland. At latest count, there are over 1800 in one prison in Arizona. But the state has discovered that the costs are considerably greater than projected, and not just in taxpayer dollars.

JUDGE STEVEN ALM: We’ve had a terrible “nimby” problem over the years—not in my backyard—about building another prison.

SEVERSON: Judge Steven Alm started the nationally recognized Project HOPE, a program for probation violators that has cut recidivism rates in half.

ALM (speaking to prisoners): But when you’re out in the world probably you’re the one who’s going to be making all these decisions.

SEVERSON: Judge Alm says Hawaii inmates doing time in Arizona are deprived of crucial family support.

ALM: Families are not going to be able to fly up to Arizona to see them. They’re not going to be able to keep that kind of relationship. They’re going to get cut off, and some are going to get cut off from their culture, from their faith organizations. It does create a real problem.

SEVERSON: Some are now reconsidering the wisdom of locking up prisoners from Hawaii almost 4,000 miles from their families. Kat Brady is with the Community Alliance on Prisons.

KAT BRADY: And what they found was that people who served their sentences abroad actually when they’re released and if they get rearrested it’s for violent crimes. Where people who serve their sentences in Hawaii, upon release if they get rearrested it’s usually for a drug crime.

SEVERSON: Nationally, about six out of 10 inmates commit another crime within three years of being released. Brady and others here now think that Hawaiian prisoners serving in Arizona are bringing gang crime back with them. Jeffrey Silva was in Arizona, part of a 10-year sentence for failing a urine drug test while on parole.

JEFFREY SILVA: You feel alienated way out there and stuff like that, so you form friendships with each other and stuff and bonds, and next thing you know it’s a gang.

SEVERSON: Ted Sakai is a former warden and Hawaii public safety director. He says Hawaiians feel a cultural and religious connection to their homeland.

SAKAI: What we have found is that just having somebody you can talk to, just having a connection with your neighbor, church member, with—definitely with somebody in your family can make a big difference.

BRADY: There was a big study done in California, probably the premiere study, and they found that people who are incarcerated who had no visits were six times more likely to be rearrested, where people who had at least three visits from three separate family members a year—their recidivism rate was much lower.

SEVERSON: Nationally this year about 650,000 inmates will be coming home from prison. There are so many and so few services to help them reenter society instead of reentering a life of crime. Here in Hawaii, the local Catholic Church asked for some help from Gene Williams.

GENE WILLIAMS: Faith-based organizations, as a matter of public policy, have been designated first responders by default. But they’re being asked to do it with no resources.

SEVERSON: Are they stepping up?

WILLIAMS: They’re stepping up with collections, with volunteer hours, but there’s a real problem. That’s not sustainable.

SEVERSON: Williams heads a national congregational and community nonprofit organization.

WILLIAMS: And when you’re talking about communities having to absorb and reintegrate people coming back from prison, those costs are astronomical. You have mental health costs, you have housing, social services, family reunification, anger management, drug treatment. There are a whole host of reentry ingredients that faith-based organizations are actually, you know, investing in and providing.

SEVERSON: Les Estrella works with addicted inmates for the Archdiocese of Honolulu. Years ago, he served time for drug abuse.

LES ESTRELLA: Research has shown that faith, as far as recidivism, recovery from substance abuse, you know, mental health, those types of disabilities, is really a good resource. It’s a good place to be, it’s s safe place for the most part.

SEVERSON: This program, operated by Catholic volunteers, provides housing and training for inmates about to reenter their community. Elliott Kaimi served time in Arizona. Now he’s learning job skills.

ELLIOTT KAIMI: Yes, this program teaches you how to fill out applications, make resumes. They also teach you how to do what they call a mock trial interview, one on one with a staff, so that way when you do get interviewed you don’t feel nervous.

ANDERSON: You can go in there in the morning, get on the Internet, you check your email, you go to Craig’s List, Hirenet, put in applications. It’s really wonderful.

SEVERSON: Angela got a job working at a homeless shelter.

JAMES RODRIGUES: I’ve been going out from November every day looking for a job.

SEVERSON: Any luck?

RODRIGUES: No, but I still—everyday I put in at least one application a day.

SEVERSON: James Rodrigues is now in a low-security Hawaiian prison that allows him to leave the institution each day to look for work. After the long separation from his parents, they’re quite happy to provide transportation. Gene Williams says faith-based groups are so overburdened with prisoner reentry they need help, too.

WILLIAMS: Faith-based organizations believe in redemption. In many ways, though, that belief system is being exploited. Government can say, “We can’t provide programming for people coming home because we have budget constraints.” But faith-based organizations, if they refuse people they are undermining the very integrity of their institutions, because compassion is part of their mission, and so what you find now are congregations who are struggling, and many who are developing compassion fatigue.

SEVERSON: Meanwhile, Hawaii has a new governor who has pledged to move the prisoners back to the islands and end the contract with the Arizona prison. Whether there will be funding to help with their reentry remains to be seen.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Hilo, Hawaii.

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BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now a story about a former state legislator who believed the answer to crime was more and more prisons — until he got locked up himself. Now he’s leading a faith-based program for prisoner rehabilitation, and he says it works. Compared to a national recidivism rate of 67 percent, for his ex-cons, he says, it is just eight percent. Lucky Severson reports.

LUCKY SEVERSON: It’s been a long haul for Pat Nolan, raised in a family of nine children in a crime-ridden Los Angeles neighborhood.

PAT NOLAN (President, Justice Fellowship, Prison Fellowship Ministries): Crime was an absolute part of our life there to the point that every time you went out, whether to church or school or the store, you were in danger of being robbed or knocked down and beaten.

SEVERSON: Then, after Catholic school and law school, Nolan won a seat in the California Assembly and became the Republican minority leader hell-bent on putting the bad guys in prison.

Mr. NOLAN: We built more new prisons than any state in history. We built more — I think it was 11 or 12 prisons, not one new university, and I think that’s a sad commentary. But at the time I thought that would make us safer.

JACK COWLEY (Former Warden, Oklahoma Department of Corrections): He was a madman. He was Attila the Hun when it comes to lock them up and throw away the key.

SEVERSON: But then the “lock-em-up” assemblyman got locked up himself, caught accepting illegal campaign contributions in an FBI sting. Nolan spent over two years in prison and was shocked at what he experienced there.

Mr. NOLAN: I saw virtually nothing was being done to change the mind or hearts of the inmates. Nothing was being done to prepare them to live healthy productive lives when they got out.

SEVERSON: Suddenly the hard-nosed prison builder had a change of mind and heart himself. He found a new calling — reforming the system he helped build, a system he now calls human warehousing. He’s still in favor of locking up the bad guys but says there are too many people who could be productive citizens languishing behind bars. And he is not alone. Mike Schnobrich is with the Council of Prison Locals and a guard at the U.S. prison in Florence, Colorado.

MIKE SCHNOBRICH (Council of Prison Locals and Guard, United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, Florence, Colorado): When I hired on back in ‘92, we were told that we no longer engaged in any sort of rehabilitation. If an inmate has a drug problem, they can do a little bit of drug treatment, they can get a GED, but not a whole lot more after that. And so it really is, for the most part, almost a warehousing operation. And I think there’s not too many people in the system who would disagree.

SEVERSON: Nolan now heads a faith-based program that operates in several states called Justice Fellowship, an arm of Prison Fellowship Ministries. It offers mentoring programs for inmates while they’re still in prison and when they get out, so they’ll stay out. This year 650,000 Americans will be coming home from prison, most of them unprepared to re-enter society. That worries former wardens like Jack Cowley.

Mr. COWLEY: Because [we] can no longer tolerate a 67 percent recidivism rate in this country. It’s not tolerable, and we’re not going to put up with it anymore. Quite frankly, it’s got to stop.

SEVERSON: He says the broken system is costing American tax payers billions of wasted dollars each year.

Mr. COWLEY: You can’t afford, as a taxpayer, a $60 billion ticket for crime in this country any longer. Bridges are falling down, people, and we cannot afford to take this money and put it in something that is no longer working.

SEVERSON: There are two sets of statistics that help explain the impact on our society of U.S. prison policy. Number one: 95 percent of Americans sentenced to prison are going to be coming out, maybe to your neighborhood. Number two: as many as seven out of 10 of those will end up back in prison within three years. There are so few rehabilitation programs very few offenders are prepared to make it on the outside. And it’s no wonder that most employers won’t hire them.

One exception is Korns Galvanizing in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. At any given time, at least half the workers here are ex-cons like Jack Shipley who spent over 43 years of his life behind bars for burglary and robbery. He’s was shocked when he applied at Korns over three years ago.

JACK SHIPLEY (Employee, Korns Galvanizing Company): And then I explained to Mr. Heider who I was and what I was in this town, and he said, “We don’t care. We don’t care at all.” He said, “What we care about is what you can do, you know, if you can work.”

BARRY HEIDER (Vice President, Operations, Korns Galvanzing Company): A lot of these fellows just pump me up. They’ve got smiles on their faces and an attitude to succeed.

SEVERSON: Barry Heider is the boss here, the man who was willing to take the risk, and it’s a risk that’s paid off. The company is preparing a study on how many of the 150 or so ex-con employees have stayed out of prison, but Heider says he’s certain Korns’ rate of success is much better than the national average.

Mr. HEIDER: But I think our success rate altogether is far better, and, again, that has to do with support, what they receive allegedly from the penal system is guidance. But there’s no support.

SEVERSON: The support comes from one another, from people like Harry Price, in prison 10 years for robbery. He’s been out seven and is now the plant supervisor.

HARRY PRICE (Plant Supervisor, Korns Galvanizing Company): It has what we call Korns love. We’re a little rough on each other, but we won’t let someone else come in here and be rough on us.

SEVERSON: Religion is an important part of the program here, although no particular religion. Most employees attend church services and receive constant mentoring from the old-timers.

Pat Nolan firmly believes that without religion most rehab programs won’t work.

Mr. NOLAN: And the problem is we do nothing to reform the character of inmates to change their heart. They have no moral framework to decide whether something’s good or bad.

SEVERSON: Nolan is becoming a loud voice nationally for prison reform. Governor Schwarzenegger has appointed him to a strike team to fix California’s prison system. He travels extensively, speaks constantly, and spends a good deal of time lobbying Congress. He has become a force to be reckoned with. Jack Cowley said at first he was skeptical of Nolan’s motives.

Mr. COWLEY: Oh, here’s just another one of those politicians who went to prison and found the Lord, and, you know, I’ve got to put up with this. But he is the genuine deal. Yes, the genuine deal.

Mr. NOLAN: Morally we have to care about them. This is a child of God, and just as they have sinned, we’ve sinned, and if we can accept Jesus’ forgiveness, how can we deny it to them?

SEVERSON: Many of the prisoners released this year were incarcerated for nonviolent crimes like drug possession, which landed Sedrick Crochron in prison. He’s now a Korns employee.

SEDRICK CROCHRON (Employee, Korns Galvanizing Company): I had a son. I tried to take care of him the fast way and, you know, “Johnny Lawman” caught up with me.

SEVERSON: What’s changed in Sedrick’s life is that he now has a skill and someone who cares for him.

Mr. CROCHRON: They’re excellent bosses. I like Harry and Barry. They’re like the uncles I never had.

SEVERSON: Pat Nolan says there’s overwhelming evidence that Justice Fellowship does work.

Mr. NOLAN: A University of Pennsylvania study studied our graduates with a matched set of people with similar offenses. Those that graduated from our program, completed it all, had an eight percent recidivism rate.

SEVERSON: There are still wardens who are reluctant to allow such things as mentoring programs, but reformers like Jack Cowley are fighting back.

Mr. COWLEY: What we tell wardens is you’re no longer the king, as I used to be, quite frankly, behind these walls, because what goes on here affects my life outside. It affects my public safety. And what I tell wardens is, okay, you don’t want to reduce recidivism — fine. I’ll just call the local newspaper and tell them that you’re not interested in providing programs that work.

SEVERSON: Pat Nolan is convinced that his time in prison was all part of God’s plan to get him where he is today.

Mr. NOLAN: C.S. Lewis says that we’re like God’s sculptures, and it’s the chisel strokes that are so painful that he uses to make us his work of art.

SEVERSON: These days you’ll find this sculpture-in-motion lobbying Congress and anyone who will listen for a new Second Chance Act to help prisoners re-enter society.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.