"We have a lot of rural communities around Arizona that compete for prison projects," Mr. Heiler said.

Getting the officers on board is the critical task in any prison project.

"More and more people are being incarcerated, and conditions are brutal in many cases," said Diana Lion, director of the fellowship's prison project.

Urvashi Vaid, a spokeswoman for the prison project, said:"There's no problem with isolating predatory inmates.

However, the prison project was continued.

One program is the prison project.

"Our job is not to collect scalps," Mr. Bowen said on the early morning flight from Baghdad to the prison project near Nasiriya.

Most experts favor work in prison on humanitarian grounds, said Joanna Wechsler, director of the prison project for Asia Watch, a human rights organization.

She is with the national prison project of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington.

Thanks in part to the mothers' weekly marches, letter-writing campaigns and determined lobbying in Sacramento, the prison project has been stalled.