U.S. Could Learn From Soviets--Colson

American prison administrators could learn something from their Soviet counterparts about motivating prisoners by having them work for pay, according to Charles W. Colson, founder and president of Prison Fellowship.

The Richard M. Nixon White House aide, who became an evangelical Christian and founded his ministry after serving seven months in prison for obstruction of justice, was in the Soviet Union in March as part of a delegation led by U.S. Prisons Director Michael Quinlan. The group toured five Soviet prison facilities, including Perm Camp 36 for political dissidents.

“I would say that morale was higher than in the typical U.S. prison,” Colson, an Episcopal layman, said in a telephone interview after his return to Washington. “It was because the inmates have work to do.”

Colson said that “the Soviets have one of the best work systems I’ve seen. Everybody in the prison has a job, which is quite impressive. One of the major problems of the American prison system is idleness of the inmates.”

While making these positive comments about Soviet prisons, Colson acknowledged the more negative aspects. “Their punishment cells were very repressive, and we told the Soviet officials so,” he said. “We argued with the Soviet officials that visiting privileges should be improved. I also engaged in a very spirited discussion with Soviet officials about the human rights of prisoners.”

Colson said that during the visit he was told by Vadim Bakatin, the Soviet minister of internal affairs, that “he has opened all of the prisons, every one of them, to religious programming and it is a matter of policy prescribing that inmates will have the right to exercise their religious beliefs in the prison.”

He said Bakatin also told him that “Prison Fellowship will be not only allowed into the prisons but welcomed. What he said is, ‘This is what we need in the Soviet Union.’ He said, ‘You have my complete assurance of cooperation and support for what you are doing.’ ”

Colson said Ron Nikkel, president of Prison Fellowship International, will return to the Soviet Union in June and will hold a training conference for Christians who want to work in the prisons. The next step will be to form a board of directors and apply for a charter for Prison Fellowship in the Soviet Union, he said.

Colson said he believes the new openness to Christian activity in the Soviet Union has come about because government officials “have come to realize they have a society that is in total chaos--decadence approaching anarchy--and that if they’re going to save it they have to have something like a religious influence that will give people some hope and some meaning that they don’t have today.”