Word: lawtey
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...least feels closer at Lawtey, a medium-and minimum-security facility that houses nearly 800 inmates. Under the prison's spiritual regimen, the Bible, the Koran and the Torah are read alongside manuals on substance abuse, anger management and job training. Volunteer clergy from churches, mosques and other houses of God seem almost as ubiquitous as guards, and prayer is built into the day. Sitting in a chapel pew as a gospel ensemble belts out Lord, I Love to Sing Your Praises, Newton, who transferred to the facility in March, shares what he calls "blessed" news. "I've been praying...
...year and a half for crack-cocaine possession. But by last summer he was back, sentenced to more than three years for selling the stuff and assaulting a police officer. Then late last year, sitting in his cell at a penitentiary in Florida's Panhandle, Newton heard that the Lawtey Correctional Institution, south of Jacksonville, had just been converted into the nation's first "faith based" prison. Fearing that his crimes were alienating his 12-year-old daughter, Newton decided to try Lawtey's mix of religion and rehab. "Drugs before my daughter, that was my life's priorities," says...