"First Stop Dying": Angola's Christian Seminary as Positive Criminology. (March 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hallett, Michael; Hays, Joshua; Johnson, Byron; Jang, Sung Joon; Duwe, Grant
• Is Part Of: International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology. Volume 61:Number 4(2017)
• Page Start: 445
• Page End: 463
• Publication Date: 2017-03
• Subjects: positive criminology -- religion in prison -- prison seminaries -- Louisiana State Penitentiary; Criminals -- Rehabilitation -- Periodicals; Criminal psychology -- Periodicals; Violent offenders -- Periodicals; Sex offenders -- Periodicals; Criminology -- Periodicals; 364.3
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X15598179
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0306-624X

Abstract

This article offers an ethnographic account of the "self-projects" of inmate graduates of Louisiana State Penitentiary's (aka "Angola's") unique prison seminary program. Angola's Inmate Minister program deploys seminary graduates in bivocational pastoral service roles throughout America's largest maximum-security prison. Drawing upon the unique history of Angola, inmates establish their own churches and serve in lay-ministry capacities in hospice, cellblock visitation, tier ministry, officiating inmate funerals, and through tithing with "care packages" for indigent prisoners. Four themes of positive criminology prominently emerge from inmate narratives: (a) the importance of respectful treatment of inmates by correctional administrations, (b) the value of building trusting relationships for prosocial modeling and improved self-perception, (c) repairing harm through intervention, and (d) spiritual practice as a blueprint for positive self-identity and social integration among prisoners.