Last Thursday, I was sitting in the heavily secured indoor recreation area in front of the cells of death row inmates in building 12 of the Polunsky unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Livingston.
The building is divided into A, B, C, D, and E sections. Each section resembles a wagon wheel. The glassed-in central hub is elevated and has an isolated corrections officer with her fingers on various buttons to unlock doors as people enter and exit the numerous areas.
The pods of cells are triangles coming off the central hub, like the area between the spokes of a wagon wheel. There are seven death row cells at the far end of each triangle and seven more stacked on top of them, housing 14 convicts to a pod, with a staircase leading from the bottom row to the top row.
The death row inmates are in their isolation cells for about 23 hours a day and cannot see each other from their cells. They eat, sleep, use the bathroom, and spend almost all day in their cells. They are handcuffed once a day and led to the shower in their pod.
A recent improvement in their condition is that if they have good behavior, they are led in handcuffs to the recreation area daily, which is a small, barred area between their cells and the hub. They are put in this area for a short period with a few other inmates so they can talk to each other or get some exercise. The facility is unbelievably secure, and I can’t tell you how many gates and check points we had to go through to get into the bowels of death row.
The recreation area was where most of our Kairos prison ministry team sat during our talks and worship services. Included in the area were four non-death row prisoners who formed a prison praise-band assisted by our volunteer bandleader, a prisoner who was an English to Spanish translator, our two volunteer team leaders, and seven volunteers who counseled with the seven inmates in the bottom cells.
Seven other free-world counselors got special permission from the warden to sit in chairs in the hallway outside the cells in the upstairs area because the recreation area is too small to house the whole team. On the first floor outside the recreation area were a few other volunteer leaders and the field ministers who were our stewards. They kept the cookies coming, supplied the drinks, and served the meals.
Field ministers are long-term prisoners who are men of faith. TDCJ has given these men correspondence seminary educations. During the week they roam the prisons to minister to the spiritual needs of their fellow prisoners under the direction of the chaplain’s office. Our inside team is supported by an outside team of volunteer men and women who provide cookies, food, supplies, and prayer support for us.
Our volunteers were a mixture of clergy and lay people, but the laity are the leaders. We took turns giving talks and preaching the gospel via an FM radio signal to the 14 “men in white” who were locked in their cells. It is so loud in the prison with the clanking of gates and loud voices that carry well in the concrete and iron structure that the inmates would not be able to hear without radio transmission.
After each talk, we went to the door of the cells wearing Kevlar vests and visited with the prisoners through little windows in the doors. As I sat listening to one of lay persons give a talk, I had the thought that these volunteers and field ministers are what real men are. They are taking leadership. They are making great personal sacrifices to minister to the needs of people society has rejected and isolated in the most tangible way possible. They are the shepherds who are seeking the lost sheep, the women looking for their valued lost coins, and the fathers fervently searching for lost sons (cf. Luke 15).
Some of the laity become Certified Volunteer Chaplain Assistants. They lead Bible studies and are involved weekly in prisons across the state. It is astounding to me how these men give themselves so completely to God’s work among the least and the lost with no reward but knowing that they are seeing God at work.
C.D. Stud said, “Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell. I want to run a rescue mission within a yard of Hell.” Volunteers in prison ministry are doing just that. The lost are being found, the imprisoned are being redeemed, and those who have strayed are coming back to the Master.
The death row population is currently down from a maximum of 460 men on death row at Polunsky when the death row facility opened in 1999, to a current census of 174 condemned men. During the past six years, Kairos prison ministry has held seven Kairos events and ministered to 98 of the men, a significant percentage of the population. Many prisoners have come to Christ and continue to follow him as disciples through the efforts of men and women volunteers in this and other prison ministries.
Jesus commanded us to preach the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8 and Acts 13:47). Death row is certainly one place that is the end of the earth, even though it is only a few miles away. It is not the only place that is the uttermost part of the earth.
The end of the earth may be your neighbor who is in a place of darkness, or a friend who is struggling with life. Men and woman who follow Christ, go and do the work of the Kingdom, wherever that may be.
Dr. Dan Darby is a retired United Methodist pastor.
