Volume 7, Issue 8, June 1998

GOD'S PRISON PARAMEDICS

Despite the job's emotional costs, our jail and prison chaplains continue a faithful and needed ministry. Sometimes they have been called spiritual paramedics.

Trained and chosen to provide spiritual and religious care for prisoners and staff in our prisons and detention centres, the chaplains provide a varied ministry under precarious, even dangerous conditions. When I was the United Church chaplain at the Guelph Correctional Centre I got caught in a prison riot. I was locked alone in a concrete corridor for 5 hours, listening to the mayhem going on around me. Eventually as the correctional officers subdued the riot they got to me and escorted me to the "tower," where I had to wait several more hours until a count was done. I observed prisoners being dragged in irons by officers, literally thrown into cells, and when the cells in that wing were full the large iron handle pulled down which levered a steel rod through all the doors making them incapable of being opened. This was a much rougher sight than anything I had ever experienced on the farm with animals in my youth. Needless to say there was considerable counselling needed after the affair died down.

The prison chaplains' role demands giving spiritual assistance to the diverse community of prisoners and keepers, locked together in a centre of punishment, penance, and compensation.

It has been said that the wheels of justice grind slowly. What they grind are human beings. Our system of imprisonment grinds away the humanity of the victims who get caught in its jaws.

Anti-social behaviour most often stems from deep wounds in people who are victims of emotional deprivation, child abuse, and poverty.

In her book, "Still Barred From Prison," Claire Culhane identifies who makes up the greater part of our prison population: the young (Canada imprisons more young people than any other country in the world), the poor, minority groups, and the unemployed.

Chaplains play an important role in the creating of justice by listening, giving, and forgiving. In the restricted, closed prison community the chaplain listens and asks to be listened to. Whether aggressive or shy, the prisoner needs to be involved in mutual listening and understanding.

Find out who your nearest chaplain is and give moral support. Take your chaplain out for lunch and get involved as a volunteer in the prison's programme of spiritual care.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.