There are over l,700,000 incarcerated men and women in jails and prisons across America. This presents a great opportunity for ministries and individuals who take the gospel to prisoners. It also presents a unique set of challenges and, in some cases, difficulties for Christian counselors who work with these prisoners and their families.
To illustrate these unique challenges let me begin with an illustration I often used when I taught criminal justice at Wheaton College and Trinity International University, both in Illinois. I began by putting a series of words on the chalkboard:
1. Homeless
2. Unemployed
3. Alcoholic
4. School drop-out]
5. Person with AIDS
6. Victim of Physical Abuse
7. Cocaine Addict
8. Victim of Sexual Abuse
9. Prisoner
I asked my students to carefully look at the list and see if there was a common theme or relationship. Students often responded with what was easily apparent such as, “They are all hurting people,” or “They all need God,” or “They all need a support system.” I then would help them think in nontraditional ways about prisoners by informing them that all the words on the chalkboard (or most of them) could in fact describe the same person! When we begin any intervention or ministry with a prisoner, we must first take into consideration that the prisoner’s situation or plight may be multifaceted. There is no one single reason that a person turns to crime.Conversely, there is no “magic bullet” or simple solution
for restoring a prisoner to the community as a functioning and stable citizen.
Needs
Working with prisoners involves networking. Care giving includes involving the church, especially upon release, and meeting basic needs such as literacy, discipleship for the growing Christian, and mentoring. At release, that support system becomes critical. Released prisoners may
need assisted housing or temporary shelter, job skills, help in finding employment and a church home, and they almost always need professional counseling.
Fear and Anxiety
While prisons differ in terms of their size and structure, the majority will expose the prisoner to intimidation and predatory violence. A highly structured environment that takes away responsibility and meaningful decision making and replaces it with blind compliance to the structure and rules of an institution takes its toll on the individual
and does not prepare the person for reentry into society. In many maximum-security prisons, gangs flourish, violence is common, and the possibility of sexual intimidation or rape is high, causing extreme fear and anxiety.
The person who wrote a bad check or stole an automobile and the person who committed an armed robbery, rape, or murder will face the same predatory environment after conviction. The one exception is the pedophile or child molester, who usually is looked down upon by all prisoners and is often victimized, if not brutally beaten.
Depression
It’s not difficult to understand why a prisoner would be depressed to the point of suicidal thoughts or attempts.
The process of being sent to prison is humiliating and stressful. In many ways, the public, the press, and the court shame the individual. The loss of a job, reputation, and family would be enough to put any individual into a state of depression. Over 80 percent of inmates’ marriages will end in divorce, and the longer an individual is in prison (more than three years), the less support system he or she will have when released.
Not all depression that a prisoner experiences is debilitating. That which comes from guilt rooted in accountability and genuine repentance of his or her crimes can be used by chaplains, counselors, or church
volunteers to generate or regenerate faith in Christ.
Even so, the prisoner who comes to believe that he or she is forgiven and becomes a born-again believer is not immune to depression, of course.
Assisting Accountability
From my years as an assistant warden and as a probation officer working in the criminal court system, I can say emphatically that the most important thing a counselor can do for a criminal is to assist the individual in the process of taking responsibility for what brought him or her to prison. There is the old saying that “everyone in prison is innocent,” or say they are. Prisoners get into the habit of blaming others for their mistakes and sins. They may even pick up themes from secular social workers and blame their parents, public defender, police officers, or judges in a type of paranoia. Counselors can help prisoners distinguish between real fears and those irrational fears that result from blaming everyone but themselves. This addresses again the importance of helping prisoners to be accountable for their behavior.
Suspicion and Paranoia Many ex-offenders have difficulty trusting and reaching out to other people. A recently released inmate will constantly be looking over his or her shoulder. The ex-offender may be overly sensitive to even the touch of a friendly hand on his back. Distrust is most often expressed as distrust of authority figures. For a male prisoner, this may be rooted in the early childhood relationship to his father, how he viewed a school administrator, or his boss at work.
If Christian ex-offenders are to truly grow, they must submit themselves to authority, especially those in mentoring relationships, who are
discipling them and holding them accountable in areas of finance and
work ethic. They must be willing to accept correction and even discipline.Overcoming suspicion and especially paranoia is extremely important.
Problems
Many prisoners and ex-offenders have difficulty with the appropriate
expression of anger. They often get in trouble because of eruptions of temper and even rage that result in fights and aggressive behavior. Sometimes the ex-offender in a church environment believes that “Christians never get angry.” This can lead to an equally disturbing problem when all strong feelings are repressed. Not communicating feelings, especially with a spouse, children, and friends will be debilitating in the long term.
Personality Disorders
The reason most people go to prison is related to bad decision making.
For some, this is rooted in personality disorders and even mental illness.
Many who work in correctional institutions have observed over the last
15 years that our prisons nationwide have become “dumping grounds” for
the mentally ill. A lot of times their crimes are nuisance behaviors such as disturbing the peace, trespassing, and destruction of property, but these ill people are labeled “criminal” even though their overriding problem is mental illness.
Sociopathology
Chaplains and Christian volunteers, especially Christian counselors,
have to be most alert for the antisocial or sociopathic personality. The
length of this article does not allow a detailed explanation but, in short, there is a type of criminal (estimated at approximately 2% of the prison population) who is devoid of conscience. Habitual killers and habitual sexual predators who exploit and hurt people are extremely narcissistic and dangerous. Sociopathic criminals are really the people for whom secure prisons are built. They are a danger to society, and unless they change through counseling and regeneration through the power
of God, these are the people who most need to be locked up. These are also people who need competent Christian counselors.
There are prisons where inmates have delusions and hallucinations,
explosive anger, and prolonged states of depression or extreme paranoia.
Many large prisons offer little in the way of counseling resources.
Common sense would tell us that mainstreaming someone with a personality
disorder in a large prison where he or she sees violence and experiences sensory deprivation in solitary confinement may only exasperate the illness.
Relationships
Prisoners have difficulty in relationships. Many prisoners shut down
emotionally. It is a sign of weakness in the prison subculture to show
kindness or tears. The prisoner who is shut down emotionally will have
difficulties in his or her marriage and communication with others. In
counseling with the family, especially a wife, you must take into consideration that she has experienced a completely altered lifestyle. She may be going to work for the first time because of legal bills. She may have financial setbacks. She may have lost her home, not to mention the shame and embarrassment she feels in her community. Many wives, even in church, will tell people that they are “divorced” or their “husband is dead” rather then admit that a spouse has gone to prison. Counseling both the prisoner and spouse, if the prisoner allows this, can be extremely beneficial. The counselor is dealing with two emotionally bruised people. Preparing for a successful transition back into the home and community requires a counselor. The person who experiences rejection from the family and who’s been lonely in prison can actually come on too strong when first released. The ex-offender may call everyone his or her “best friend” and make emotional attachments that are inappropriate. Moving too fast in the area of relationships can be as harmful for the ex-offender as remaining isolated.
Summary
I believe that the Christian counselor is greatly needed in the jail and
prison environment. The counselor has before him or her a unique set of
challenges because of what the intimidating and often violent corrections environment does to the prisoner.
Also, personality disorders are often prevalent with criminal behavior.
Prisoners have difficulty with authority and relationships. This is
a problem a Christian counselor is most prepared to assist the prisoner
with. Most importantly, a Christian counselor who works alongside a
chaplain (who may be discipling or leading that individual to put his or
her trust in Christ) may be able to help the prisoner fully accept responsibility for his or her situation.
I have worked with prisoners for 18 years. I’ve written pre-sentence
reports for judges for both juvenile delinquents and adult felony offenders. I have locked up offenders as an assistant warden, and I’ve administrated an ex-offender scholarship program. Having visited over 500 prisons in 10 countries, I have met every category imaginable from petty offender to serial killer. I believe there is no category and no individual who cannot be reached by the power of God.
According to 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” This does not mean that
the prison doors swing open for early release or that release is even possible for the most violent offenders. It does mean that the power of God can regenerate any person from the inside out. As Christians, we believe that everyone can be forgiven of his or her sins and live eternally with God in heaven. We must only remember that, while dying on the cross, Jesus turned to a condemned criminal and assured
him that he would be in paradise. I’ve witnessed mafia hit men like Charlie Pratt (declared “criminally incurably insane”) be restored through the power of God, be released, and assume leadership, never again committing a new crime!
Having said this, we must remember that we are all frail in the human
condition. Being a “new creation” does not mean we jettison our old
personalities. If we had a problem with temper, we may still have to
work on appropriate expressions of anger. If we molested small children,
we still can be tempted sexually and have to avoid situations where those temptations can overpower us. We are still learning and growing
every day of our mortal lives, and counselors can help us with reality
therapy. The “new creature” we are in Christ is essentially a new attitude, a new way of looking at ourselves and the world around us. We need counselors to help the incarcerated not think they are invincible.
We will always need community. We will always need relationships. We will always need accountability as we grow as believers and followers of
Christ. The Christian counselor has a unique opportunity to assist a criminal in life-changing decisions that can restore him or her toward becoming a stable and productive citizen.
Don Smarto, M.A., is Vice President of Good News Jail & Prison Ministry
in Wheaton, Illinois. Prior to his present position, Don was director of Prison Ministries at the Billy Graham Center for over 12 years. Before his work in prison ministry, he held numerous positions in the criminal justice system as a probation officer, assistant warden of a maximum-
security juvenile facility, and director of a residential drug abuse program that received national recognition.
