A new jail could be built in Cornwall - 85 years after the the last one closed.
Those behind the proposal say a prison is needed in the county because sending locals to jails outside of Cornwall can strain inmates' family relationships.
A Christian organisation is looking at the feasibility of building a faith-based private jail, run on Christian ethics, to help rehabilitate inmates.
However, the Prison Service said it had "no current plans" to build faith-specific prisons in England and Wales.
The leaders of Carpenters House project are now raising funds to provide a prison feasibility study and will then lodge their proposal with the government.
'Early days'
If the proposal receives government backing, the next step would be to identify a suitable site in Cornwall and then build the £50m jail.
Cornwall's last prison, in Bodmin, shut in 1927 and later became a tourist attraction.
The project, which it is hoped will also help to cut to re-offending, would see a voluntary in-house training course run in the jail for inmates which would be based on the Bible and 10 Commandments.
It would be spearheaded by the Kainos Community, a faith-based charity which has operated its Challenge to Change programme in jails for more than a decade.
During that time they claim to have cut re-offending rates among inmates they have worked with by 87% within two years of their release - the national average is 40%.