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April 25, 2025This post was originally published on this site
As a woman working in a men’s high-security prison, I was told not to care about the incarcerated population. But my job was to love.
Wearing a protective vest, I stood on the compound of the federal penitentiary where I had just been hired as the prison’s first female chaplain. My uniform included handcuffs, pepper spray and a radio with an alarm that I would press if attacked. I was 30 years old and newly married.
Listen to this article, read by Janina Edwards
As I watched men file out of a housing unit and into the cafeteria, I shifted in my boots and gazed at the hills beyond the watchtowers and lines of barbed wire.
An officer approached me and said, “I’ve got a question for you. How many of these inmates do you think you are going to help here? How many will actually change their lives as a result of your work?”
“Not very many,” I said. “Maybe five or six.”
“You know,” he said, “I asked the last chaplain here. He’d been in for eight years. How many do you think he told me?”
“Ten?”
“One. Just one. You can’t change these guys. It’s better not to care about them at all. You probably won’t come to hate the inmates since you’re a chaplain, but try to get as close to hate as possible.”
