Accommodating the diverse spiritual needs of inmates is not as simple as some might think. Among other things, Khoo shared with me his memories of walking inmates to the gallows. In Singapore, hanging is the method by which inmates receiving the death penalty are executed. I remember Khoo telling me how vastly different it was to walk to the gallows with prisoners who had become Christians, as opposed to non-Christians.
He stated that the non-Christians tended to be bitter and angry during that last walk, and that you could see the torment in their faces.
For the Christians, however, the situation was completely different. He described Christians as being at complete peace before the hanging, a calmness that was obvious to anyone observing.
In essence, they were ready to meet their maker. I remember vividly Rev. Khoo telling me of one instance while walking an inmate to the gallows, the chaplain was so distraught he could not hold in his emotions and began to weep openly. There can be no denying that we certainly need more solid research on the role of religion within the correctional setting, and especially more focused research on spiritual conversion in prison.
Nonetheless, it would seem shortsighted—for reasons I will share momentarily—to argue that religious conversions in prison are meaningless, or to assume they will not stick. First, let me be very clear about my position on religious conversions in prison.
I do not believe that conversion experiences—no matter how dramatic—are the answer to prisoner reform, or for that matter, a host of other crime-related problems e. In other words, religious conversions play a necessary role, but these conversions, in isolation, are insufficient in reforming offenders and bringing about lasting change.
That is to say, the key to sustainable behavioral change is the ongoing process of spiritual transformation. My statement that conversion experiences e. Let me explain. In chapters 10 and 11, I discuss the many obstacles that prisoners face in returning to society. For many, it is only a matter of time before they break the law or violate a condition of their parole.
Housing, employment, transportation, lack of life skills, and inability to handle stressful conditions are just some of the problems facing ex-prisoners.
Former inmates who have had a conversion experience are not exempt from these obstacles. Indeed, unless ex-prisoners who happen to be born-again Christians get the social and spiritual support necessary to develop a deep and lasting religious commitment—mainly via congregations—they will likely fail in their effort to transition back to society.
Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck conducted one of the most well-known delinquency studies of all time. The Gluecks in published the classic book Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency , where they studied, among other things, five hundred troubled boys raised in Boston who had already been involved in delinquent behavior and had been put into reform school.
The Gluecks collected extensive records about the boys and tracked them through adolescence. Sampson and Laub found out that some of the troubled boys, as one might expect, ended up in trouble with the law for the rest of their lives. Others, however, lived very normal lives and had no legal problems.
In an important book, Sampson and Laub not only examined why troubled kids remained in trouble, but more important, they also focused on how so many of these troubled youth actually turned out well.
The answers that Sampson and Laub put forward are consistent with a life-course perspective. They found that the troubled kids who would get straightened out experienced some sort of a turning point or event that was pivotal in bringing them out of a criminal lifestyle or path, and into a more traditional and law-abiding pattern of behavior.
These turning points, for example, could be landing a job, getting married, or becoming a parent. For others, going into military service might prove to be a turning point by perhaps providing the discipline and structure they were lacking. Just because a person starts out on the wrong track does not mean that he or she is destined to stay on the wrong track.
Essentially Sampson and Laub, as well as other life-course theorists, agree that having ties or bonds to social institutions marriage, family, employment, etc. However, these theorists have had precious little to say about the factors that lead to the changes in ties or bonds.
Stated differently, scholars have been reluctant to discuss how changes within the individual during adulthood may lead to the formation of these important social bonds. In recent years, however, several scholars have acknowledged that changes in the individual must take place before that person is ready to develop ties and bonds to social institutions.
In other words, the individual must change if the bond is to form. A focus on individual change is critical to our understanding of what works in corrections. This process makes possible the development of a new and more favorable identity to replace the old one associated with any or all of the following: failure, violence, abuse, addiction, heartbreak, and guilt.
This is why religious conversions and spiritual transformations are important. These religious experiences are turning points or events in the lives of offenders. These religious experiences allow offenders to build a new foundation and to start their lives over. As discussed in chapter 6, many born-again inmates are able for the first time to admit to the crimes they have committed and get a new lease on life.
Along these same lines, a number of restorative justice programs are interested in bringing crime victims and offenders face-to-face. These programs, many of which are faith-based, exist in order to bring closure and emotional healing to an experience that has never been reconciled.
I remember interviewing a particular prisoner on multiple occasions, Ron Flowers, a convicted murderer from Houston. Ron had become a Christian in prison, but nonetheless maintained his innocence. Flowers was convicted of shooting a teenage girl at gunpoint. The girl, Dee Dee Washington, was in the car of another person who, unbeknownst to her, was attempting to purchase drugs.
In police parlance, she was simply an innocent bystander—collateral damage. Ron Flowers participated in a faith-based prison program and met a pastor of a church in Houston who did volunteer work at the prison. One day the minister mentioned working with prisoners at a nearby prison. Intrigued, one of the members, Arna Washington, a schoolteacher, asked the pastor if he had met or had heard of Ron Flowers.
Washington realized the mathematical long shot of Ron Flowers being in this small faith-based prison group. After all, Texas is home to more than one hundred thousand inmates in more than one hundred prisons. Washington, did, in fact, want to meet Ron Flowers—the person she had come to hate for literally devastating her family.
Though a devout Christian, Mrs. Now she would actually have the opportunity to meet him and ask the question she had been struggling with for fourteen years. When the meeting took place, several unexpected things happened. The second they met face-to-face, Flowers, to his surprise, for the first time, confessed to the murder.
A huge load was lifted the instant I forgave him. The Life Connections Program LCP and Threshold Programs offer inmates the opportunity to improve critical life areas within the context of their personal faith or value system. LCP is a multi-faith residential reentry program that is available at five sites across the country at low, medium, and high security levels.
It is an intensive, multi-phase program which instills values and character through a curriculum of personal, social and moral development. The LCP program utilizes various faith communities nationwide who serve as support group facilitators or mentors at program sites and release destinations to enhance community reintegration.
The national average is prisoners per , residents. The total U. Those are big numbers but each person represented in the number is a human being made in the image of God who must be respected as such, said Harold Dean Trulear, national director of Healing Communities, an organization that seeks to provide tools for prison ministry and prison re-entry programs.
The Bible is clear on how followers of Christ are to treat the prisoner, which is why the church has to be involved in prison ministry, he said.
Jesus was a prisoner when He died for the sins of humanity, Trulear said. Alabama Department of Corrections pastoral programs supervisor Tom Woodfin said there are many ways prison ministry is conducted throughout the state prison system. Traditional ministries that include worship and music services, small group Bible studies and revivals are common, Woodfin noted.
Increasingly prison ministries also are including programs to help inmates develop life skills that will help them cope with life in, and perhaps eventually out of, prison.
0コメント