Just plain stupid

Many of you know that I have severe eczema. Bad weather makes it worse: in humidity I break out in hives; in freezing conditions I often develop staph infections. I rely on various and sundry steriod creams to keep it under control.

But what if, instead of trying to stay out of extreme weather conditions, and instead of treating the rash with medical ointments proven to ameliorate the problem, what if I decide to treat the problem by, oh I don't know, reading a book? Not a book on skin care, mind you. Maybe Harry Potter. Or the Journal of Applied Organizational Psychology. Anything, as long as it is unrelated to the problem. Think it would work? Of course not. Any idiot knows that the way to solve a problem is by stemming the cause of the problem.

That's what makes this program such an incredibly stupid idea:

Among those supporting InnerChange is former attorney general John D. Ashcroft, who wrote shortly before this month's arguments before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis that high recidivism rates prove that programs such as InnerChange, sometimes called IFI, are needed.

"Neither Judge Pratt nor Americans United offers a better way to stop the revolving door of prisons. They simply want to shut IFI down," Ashcroft wrote in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. (emphasis mine)

So here we have a problem. And since the problem exists, it's obvious that a religious-based program is an appropriate solution. Let's not worry whether lack of religion has anything to do with why a person wound up in prison in the first place.

See, this is why I think anyone who wants to plan and implement policy should be required to take classes in argumentation. Not only is Ashcroft confusing cause and effect, but he has ignored the fact that the burden of proof lies with him to show that InnerChange will reduce recidivism. But let's give Ashcroft the benefit of the doubt. Let's say that he doesn't understand statistics very well (it's pretty tough stuff as D. sill attest ;)) and so he doesn't know how collect the data that will allow him to perform the T-tests, correlations, or regressions that will allow him to know if the program has an impact. How about some descriptive data that can allow us to extrapolate?

Pratt ordered InnerChange to close its operations and repay $1.5 million to the Iowa government and prisoners whose telephone surcharges helped fund the program. He said he was careful not to pass judgment on the beliefs of the staff or the effectiveness of the religious approach, although he said he had received no credible data on recidivism rates. (emphasis mine)

Nope.

So there's no evidence at all, and yet the state of Iowa is spending $1.5 million helping prison inmates pray? I wonder if any of them have eczema.