Is Cross Gender Prison/Jail Ministry Advisable?

Cross Gender Ministry in Prisons/Jails-Yes or No?
by Chaplain R. Lewis


Note: I cover this issue extensively, in detail, in my upcoming book "Streetwise Prison Ministry".  I'll draw on some excerpts to critically comment on this issue in this blog.  If you want to dialog more on this issue use the comments section and I'll post more.

-From Streetwise Prison Ministry-a synopsis of the chapter on gender-part 1

Can cross gender jail or prison ministry work? Speaking as a female chaplain that worked primarily in men's prisons for my twenty years with the Feds, I, of course, say YES.  Worked for me. But for the most part, since jail and prison ministry is already complex, it's probably preferable for the average person with a calling to the incarcerated to do same gender ministry in order for the natural biological sexual tension that always exist between men and women just not to be a factor. 

It's not for me or anyone else to tell you what your calling is.  But if you've decided ministry is ministry, make sure all the boundaries are in place and you are not walking around with some airhead grandiose idea that you can't be compromised romantically, or otherwise. Yes that was pretty candid. I meant it to be. Fact is if you are going to minister in the Lord's name in these dark places where men and women are already emotionally confused and dysfunctional, don't be naive to the fact if you minister to the opposite sex the individual  could mistake the grace of God you are bringing, with an infatuation for you personally.  

Admittedly the grace we bring begins to ignite hope in the inmates that God can help them get their lives together. They become so grateful and relieved they begin to believe God really does love them unconditionally and all the ugly actions of their lives can be forgiven.  They dare to open themselves up again to love.  But in that process where God is opening their heart and showing them the true definition of love, there are speed bumps along the way that may get them unbalanced in their ability to interpret their feelings. Transference may occur.  So for the purpose of this simple blog let me list some do's and don'ts if you believe you have the gift of working with the opposite gender.

1. Know your mission. You are not the messiah. You can't fix their problems. This is fundamental to everything else. What you bring is the grace of God that paves the way for them to be open to their own encounter with Christ. Stay focused on the mission. Just like the old cop show hero would state, "Facts. Just the facts." Once you stray away from the scriptural lesson and start getting into personal stories, you start on a slippery slope.

2. No Touching. This means especially no hugging. Handshakes are universally benign and with hesitation I won't go so far as to say don't shake hands, but do pay attention to the person who lingers in the handshake.  While hugging and personal contact, like handshaking, is acceptable in our churches, it is often abused by affection starved inmates.  

And be aware of 'accidental' touching. Report such 'accidents' to the chaplain or officer in charge, no matter how benign it seems. That slight brush, or bump may appear to be an accident and indeed may be, but you can't take the chance. It may be read as an over reaction, because it may actually be accidental, but believe me, it's better to put a person on notice than to let something like that escalate over time. Reality check. Ignoring it won't make it go away if it isn't accidental. What's happening here is a test of your embarrassment quotient. Coddling dysfunctional behavior makes you seem weak and that one focused inmate may be grooming you for some compromise. Listen. These things are always awkward. But if you are a sheep and not up for simply saying, "I'm sorry, but in here, I'm not allowed to do any kind of touching. I'm sure you understand.", then you have no business working with the opposite sex in ministry. Be wise. And be in charge. They will not respect you if they think you are a potential mark for manipulation.

3.  If someone comes to your service inappropriately dressed, buttons unbuttoned, fly gaping, or always putting their hands inside their pants or touching themselves, notify the staff member monitoring your service and have them removed. You have other inmates that aren't playing these games with you. Look at the greater good, leave that person to God and get them removed.

4.  Never hang back after a service talking to an inmate unless you are in full view of the chaplain or staff supervising you.  In open chapel church services, inmates will linger to talk one on one with a volunteer, especially if the move is delayed.  If you find yourself alone with an inmate who wants to talk, get your self moving to a less compromising area.  You have legs, use them.  Joseph ran from Potiphers wife. There's no shame in that.  If the inmate is above board he or she won't have a problem with you taking charge of the time and location for your session of personal counseling.  Always have a chaplain or another volunteer present if the conversation is going to go beyond just chatting until the chaplain can walk you out.  But there should always be others in the area visually.  Even full time chaplains have rules they go by when doing personal counseling. I can't emphasize enough how easily a volunteer and even a staff member can be accused of impropriety in quick order.

5.  Stay on topic. Do not engage in personal information with an inmate no matter how long you've been coming in. Granted personal experience is beneficial for encouragement teaching.  But why are you telling them about your dog, your vacations, your mission trips? When you do that unless you are paying attention, you start getting too chummy and begin to divulge personal things that could later be used to trip you up. While personal stories of grappling with sin and victories are helpful for encouragement, know the line you cross when you share intimate personal issues with inmates that can be used to manipulate your emotions and cause you to be drawn into their own struggles and perhaps start to tangle your emotions with romantic notions.  You are not their example, Christ is. 

Learn to speak generically when using examples from your own life experiences. For instance…"I know a person who had a dog"…then tell the story and apply it to your message. I know you're saying, "Oh come on. How harmful could it to share a personal struggle and victory and let them know it was me?"

Too many stories to tell.  But one full time chaplain became so comfortable with an inmate he shared some personal financial woes regarding his child's education.  Unbelievable though it sounds, the chaplain was talked into bringing in contraband in exchange for the inmates family contributing to his child's education. No kidding. So don't think you can't be baited. Even full time Chaplains break weak and get sucked in.

So in this short, much abbreviated synopsis of my chapter on gender, let me leave you with a way of dealing with an inmate who may have transferred feelings to you. Remember, have this conversation with the inmate with a staff member in the room. This worked for me as a Chaplain that worked primarily in men's prisons.  Goes something like this. 

"Hey, I need to talk about something with you. Want you to listen closely. I want to tell you what my role is in coming into jails and prisons.  It is to share the gospel, disciple you, and get you where you won't need me to teach you anymore.  It's to help you have your own relationship with God apart from me or anyone else foundationally. That way when you are hit up in life again, your relationship with Christ will be your foundation.  He won't let you down. I've sensed there are some feelings developing that are not in course with that mission. In order not to sidetrack you in what God is doing, and to keep the integrity of what I'm here to do, I've asked someone else to take on this responsibility with you.  That someone is from your own gender.  I will no longer have any one on one contact with you or interact with you, unless in the presence of another volunteer or chaplain.  This is not personal and it's not negotiable. I do not want to get in Gods way and I'm sure you want His voice to  be primary, not mine."

If you think you have what it takes to work with both genders, then more power to you. But be wise. Watch for the red flags and take appropriate measures to keep your integrity, so you can continue in the mission for which God has called you. 

STARING INTO NOTHINGNESS

STARING INTO NOTHINGNESS

By Chaplain R. Lewis

     Grown men dressed in khakis, standing in line for a meal in the prison chow hall, looking blankly into the ground, lost in private thoughts, the only privacy owned now.  They have food, shelter, clothing, but not privacy. They gave up the right to privacy when they did the crime.  Only in their thoughts do they have a private place.
     It somehow gives me a fleeting moment of empathy, even though the responsibility for being here belongs to them.  I don't feel sorry for them really.  There's no time for that.  These men are in the heat of battle.  The outward appearance is merely standing in line waiting to eat prison chow.  But this line is different than standing in one for a buffet.  There is no choosing what they will eat, or the time they will eat, or with whom they will dine.

     If one suddenly looked up and noticed I was watching them, I would look away, if only to preserve their dignity in one small way.  They get watched a lot.  Nothing is private...except their thoughts. They are the truly lonely in a crowd.  His arms are crossed.  The back of the inmate ahead of him is inches away and would make a blank canvas for his thoughts.  Yet he looks off to the side and to the ground.  Maybe staring at the back of the other would be misinterpreted by prison survival code, thus the staring into the ground is safer and further disengages him from human contact even standing in line.  Ground is neutral.  Hard to imagine him able to detach from all the loud talk of some of the other men in chow line.  Those who use noise to distract themselves are also lost in thought in a way, they engage the technique of pretending it's just another day of time in prison.  Not that laughter is unusual in prison. It's human nature to want to laugh, to experience some moment of normalcy as a human being. Men don't leave their humanness at the entrance of the prison.  But laughter has never meant inner peace.
     What is that one thinking?  It could be as deep as imagining himself with his wife or kids, or wondering what he's doing here.  Some of these men are surprised by prison.   Some are business men caught up in a shady deal, perpetuated by rationalization and compromise.  Others were on a downward slide because of drugs and were so zoned out that when the drugs wore off and they started thinking clearly, they found that whatever nightmare they were trying to escape using drugs, had just changed to the face of prison.  Out of the frying pan into the fire.
     Of course staring off into nothingness doesn't always translate into deep thought.  Some of these men never do anything about dealing with what brought them to prison.  The blank stare into oblivion, the zoning out, is an survival method a lot like a depressed person sleeping all the time.  They tune out the noise the people, the thoughts are tepid, their next steps robotic.  They are just doing time.  Some have mastered doing time, without dealing with what brought them here.  It's not so deep.  Some people just don't have an interest in changing their ways.  Crime is an art, a challenge.  In prison they just perfect their art.
     So I watch him pass by as the chow line starts to move.  The Savior is, in an eternal way, watching him too.  Stoked from his private oblivion, the young man moves toward food service, where he can at least feed his body.  I can only pray he will get hungry enough to want to feed his soul too.

JAILBIRD-

JAILBIRD, my novel, seems to be doing well. You can order yours through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I think it would be a good read for you and anyone in prison ministry. It's also a good teaching tool for inmates.

Keep me in prayer as I write the sequels and work on my two non fictions. In the works are:

Dream Killer-plot line is teen sex trafficking Angie Granger and Mac Barelli are pulled into the ugly world of sex trafficking, racing to save three young girls who are kidnapped and locked away in this dark trade.

Vendetta-plot line is bitterness and Jihad-Angie Granger and Mac Barelli are targeted by an ex-felon intent on vengeance against them and using his new found religion to bring his own interpretation of Jihad to the city.

Jailhouse Religion: The Criminals Use of Religion Behind Bars-An inside look at the complex nature of the practice of religion in prison. Deals with the misuse of religion by inmates for power and pushing the envelope against the system, formula faith and more.

Streetwise Prison Ministry-A candid talk with prison ministry participants with the intent on creating effective jail and prison ministers. Topics include security issues, messiah complex, gender issues in ministry, and more.

GANGSTER PRIDE

GANGSTER PRIDE

by Chaplain Rebecca Lewis

     I stood outside the hospital room and greeted the officers sitting outside at the door guarding the high profile patient.  There was a middle room to pass through before actually entering his room  I stepped just inside and paused.  It seemed surreal, me standing in the dark room looking through into the brighter room housing the most notorious gangster in America.  His bed was framed by the door and it was almost like looking at some painting. It was a small room on the upper floor, but his bed was aligned by a huge window.  He lay on the freshly starched white sheeted bed with the light from the window streaming like a spotlight into the room. No color.  Light, with no gold's, reds, or blues or greens.  Just various shades of grey.  Strangely it symbolized to me what his life had become as he lay there, his still breathing body a symbol of a life who had wrecked death and destruction on others.  He was no longer the swaggering, well dressed powerful man he had been years ago in his prime.  He had owned the streets.  A man who had once ordered the death of many, now had been silenced by the disease that had attacked his vocal chords. He could not order death around this time. Death was in charge.

     He lay in the stillness like a photo capturing time, his head turned, starring out, lost in his thoughts.  Weeks earlier he had arrogantly challenged the system housing him, blowing up to a chaplain from his own religious tradition.  Why was he kept segregated from the main population? he had challenged arrogantly.  He knew his only true power came from his influence and the validation he got from the minions and the masses sold out to his handouts and protection he gave them.  Without them, he was only a man.  When told it was for his own safety he, clothed in his baggy orange jump suit, a far cry from the designer suits once worn, blurted out viciously, 

"MY protection?  People need to be protected from me!"  

     Something in his manner must have scared that chaplain.  With no disrespect intended, he was a timid guy anyway and I always wondered how he survived working in a federal prison without being suckered and used up by the more acutely savvy cons.  He reported the incident, but he never visited him again. 

     Now the gangster was dying.  I entered the room in this moment of his true vulnerability, obviously an encounter set up by God. He turned his head slowly and looked at me.  There was no arrogance today.  I was meeting the real man.  His eyes were sad, distant, still lost in his thoughts. He didn't want to come back inside the room, wanting to stay in the freedom of his mind, probably able to move freely and be surrounded and loved by his family.  Yes even the bad guys have people who love them.  These things are the things that make for happiness.  Too late, perhaps he was realizing that.  But maybe not.  These guys have created their own reality. And their rationalizations have become truth to them, making admitting mortality alien to them. 

     I introduced myself as the duty chaplain.  The presence of God was what I had to offer.  I told him I was praying for him and his family and that I knew it must be hard on them not being able to be around him while he was so sick.  He nodded slightly and quietly thanked me.  I don't remember the prayer. Did I even say one?   

     I left, greeting once again the armed officers who were guarding the man.  Even in his fragile state he had enemies and friends that would have risked getting at their charge.  Their stress was reduced by the presence of God too, and they momentarily were able to smile as I joke with them on my way out.

     I've thought of that scene often over the years  Did I miss an opportunity to once again present Christ to this man?  All I know is I also keep hearing the echo of his arrogant words to the other chaplain, "My protection?  People need to be protected from me!", ringing in my ears.  These are not the words of a man who will have a death bed conversion.  I had prayed for direction when I entered the room.  What I had said was all I was suppose to say.  I only imagine if on this earth he didn't get things right with God, that his arrogance and posturing will not deter judgment.  I will always wonder.  I think I know.  But only in eternity are the results of a man's life tallied. 

DEAD WOMAN WALKING

Dead Woman Walking

by Rebecca Lewis

She was turning  tricks at age eleven.  She didn't have to hide it from her mother.  It was her mother that had turned her out.  It was a strange form of child abuse, and it had the same result most kids experience when a parent is the source of their pain.  They try to please them. Somehow they reason it's not the abusers fault, it must be theirs.  She brought in a lot of money.  It paid the bills.  It paid for the drugs.  She contributed to the family.  But she lost her childhood.  By her early twenties she had done it all and now had found a pseudo love with a local hit man.

     Then it all came tumbling down. Her mother died.  Emotional anger unreconciled, her mother became deified in her mind, the ugly betrayal of motherhood pushed into oblivion.  When in a fit of anger a male friend rips up the last picture of her mother, she concocts revenge against him.  In the dead of night she and her hit man boyfriend break into the offenders apartment to steal his beloved motorcycle he keeps inside.  The plans go wrong. They had miscalculated, thinking he was out for the night.  He wasn't.  A fight ensues.  The hit man takes a climbers pickax found in the corner of the bedroom and plants it in the man.  Leaving the man dead on the floor, her boyfriend exits the bedroom and the girl enters the room to steal valuables.  A sudden movement at the end of the bed under the covers startles her.  Motorcycle man's girlfriend had visited on the wrong night. The drugged out avenging girl engages her in a fight, while calling for her boyfriend  He enters and kills the girls with the pickax leaving it embedded in her chest. He again leaves the room, but motorcycle man's girlfriend begins to gurgle as the blood seeps into her mouth from her lungs.  The young dark haired prostitute takes the pickax and buries it again in her chest. The gurgling stops.  So does the life of the young eleven turned twenty something drugged out victim of a worthless mother.  She got the death penalty.

     But it doesn't end yet.  Throughout years of waiting for trial, the actual trial, the death sentence and the wait for the execution date, her life now free of drugs ad men, she was able to see clearly.  Some call it jailhouse religion, a bargaining chip for reprieve from the needle.  She served the Lord while on trial and while on death row.  She saved two of her fellow dead women walking cohorts from ending their own lives.  She testified to guards and did community service making dolls for abused children.  But she never asks for reprieve. Others were asking for her, even the judge that sentenced her.

     Her take on her situation?  She said she deserved the sentence of death.  It was just.  She'd take the reprieve if it came and be a witness for the rest of her life in prison if given the chance.  But she'd leave that up to God.  But her time came and the governor refused to commute her sentence to life.

     I didn't get involved in her last days.  I didn't write letters to add to the pile going to the Governor.  I had played a part in her early discipleship while she was locked up in the county jail, and I had visited her on death row.  I, like her, figured that was all in God's hands.

     She gave me one of her dolls when I saw her last on death row.  It had a full smile on it's face, just like she always did those days.  And it wasn't fake.  A day before the execution I called the chaplain there and told her to tell her I'd see her in heaven. I have no doubt I will.