BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: From time to time we have reported here on prison ministries -- typically run by outside visitors or chaplains. Today, a four-year Bible college inside an infamous prison that is turning inmates themselves into ministers, with apparently dramatic results. Lucky Severson reports from Angola, Louisiana.

LUCKY SEVERSON: There's an ironclad rule for inmates working the farm at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. If they get too close to the guards on horseback, the guards will shoot first and ask questions later. This is a maximum-security prison, the biggest in the country - 5,200 inmates; 3,200 with life sentences. Hardly anyplace anywhere has so many men with a history of violence. The warden, Burl Cain:

BURL CAIN (Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary): I was getting called every week when I was first warden here. We had murders, we had escapes, we had suicides -- loss of hope.

SEVERSON: Major Paul Myers, an Angola correctional officer for 23 years:

Major PAUL MYERS (Correctional Officer, Louisiana State Penitentiary): It was not uncommon for us to have multiple knife fights within a single day.

SEVERSON: Jerome Derricks is in for life, and there is no parole in Louisiana.

JEROME DERRICKS (Inmate, Louisiana State Penitentiary): When I first came here, I was shaking like dice. I didn't know which way to go.

SEVERSON: Listen to what they're saying now.

Mr. DERRICKS: I can now lay down at night and not worry about what my neighbor is going to do to me or anything like that.

Major MYERS: There is a general humanity towards one another. I think this largely accounts for the peace we have within the institute.

SEVERSON: The big change started with Warden Cain, who was frustrated at the lack of funding for rehabilitation and education programs. The warden, a Southern Baptist, says he was determined to add some value and a sense of moral responsibility to inmates' lives. So he brought in a nationally accredited four-year Bible college, operated by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and funded mostly by private contributions.

Warden CAIN: That culture spread throughout this prison, and that is when the violence decreased. It was moral rehabilitation, which is the only true rehabilitation there is. I can get you education. I can get you to read and write. But if I don't change you morally, you don't change morally; you're still a criminal.

SEVERSON: In other words, when Bible students mingled with other prisoners, the culture of violence started to change. The prison reports that inmate violence is down 40 percent and attacks against guards are way down. That doesn't mean life at Angola is free of violence -- far from it. In February this year, one inmate brutally murdered another. But there are individual success stories -- inmates who were nothing but trouble before. "Carolina" was one of them -- a "lifer" for second-degree murder. He was, by all accounts, as mean as mean gets until he found God.

DONALD "CAROLINA" BIERMANN (Inmate, Louisiana State Penitentiary): The common belief even among myself was that if you were Christian, you were a coward. There was a stigma attached to Christianity.

SEVERSON: And that is no longer the case?

Mr. BIERMANN: Absolutely. When I committed my life to Christ, I met Jesus, and I have no shame about that.

SEVERSON: But these are cons, and prison conversions are not always believable, although the head of the Bible school, the Reverend John Robson, says you simply cannot "con a con."

Reverend JOHN ROBSON (New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary): The Christian inmate here cannot play the hypocrisy game and get away with it. Why? His fellows know it. They live together. This is a tight community. And when you think about it, they are being observed 24 hours a day by each other.