Can religious programs change prison environments? Pepperdine studies Parchman for answers

Can faith-based programming make a difference behind prison walls? A long-term research project by Pepperdine University is in the process of finding out — with help from the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Andrew Johnson, a professor at Metro State University's School of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Byron Johnson, a professor of social services at Baylor University, are leading the research project, which is about halfway into its study.

The Clarion Ledger recently spent an afternoon with Andrew Johnson at a café in Starkville, where he talked about his and Byron Johnson's work. Andrew Johnson had been at South Mississippi Correctional Institution the day before and was on his way to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman the following day.

"I have been interested in this intersection of religion and prison, so was asked to do a project in Mississippi," Andrew Johnson said.

He began working on the research in June 2022, and has been visiting Parchman about once a month ever since. He said Parchman Superintendent Marc McClure has allowed him to have access to virtually every part of the prison, including Unit 30, the prison's largest unit, and Unit 29, where male prisoners on death row are housed.

"I'll admit that I arrived skeptical, because I've read so much and seen so much (about Mississippi prisons)," he said.

Johnson's first visit to death row was very different from how they are today.

"I remember walking through there with some of the (guards') weapons out behind me and in front of me," he said.

McClure had been superintendent at the prison for about two months. At the time, the men on death row were kept in their cells 23 hours a day. As McClure settled into the job, that began to change, Johnson said.

"The next time I visited a couple months later, they were out at 8 and back in at 6," he said. "There has been tremendous change on death row — and some hope."

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Andrew Johnson and Byron Johnson created a short documentary to show how men incarcerated at Parchman can find peace, hope and even joy at times. Looking at the qualitative data, faith-based programs seem to work, Andrew Johnson said.

The prisoners on Parchman's death row for years have had their own makeshift church, called the Dog Pen, where they hold worship services and prayer. In 2021, ground was broken on a 6,000-square-foot nondenominational chapel at Unit 30 that can seat up to 250 people. The chapel was privately funded.

One of the chaplains, Ron Olivier, was incarcerated at Angola prison in Louisiana, where he became an ordained minister. Olivier was paroled from Angola in 2018.

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Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain was warden at Angola, which like Parchman, is a maximum-security facility with a long history of violence and poor living conditions.

Having a chaplain who has been on the outside but is now free, also gives prisoners a look at what their lives can be if or when they are released from prison, Johnson said.

"What does it look like for me to be out of here," he said. "Now they have a couple examples of what that would look like."

When Cain first stepped into his role as chief of the state's prison system in May 2020, he knew he had his work cut out for him.

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State institutions were rife with riots sparked by gang warfare and protests over the appalling conditions prisoners were forced to live in. The coronavirus pandemic had just set in and the incarcerated men and women were placed under lockdown with no contact with the outside world for weeks at a time.

To add to the problems, there was a critical shortage of guards, some of whom were suspended, fired or banned from the prisons for alleged wrongdoing, including bringing in contraband items.

One of the first things Cain wanted to do was bring in what he calls "moral rehabilitation" or teaching prisoners how to tell right from wrong. He planned to bring more faith-based opportunities to the state's prisons, a mission which he has consistently furthered, including opening a similar chapel for female prisoners at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

"We find morality faster in religion than anywhere else," Cain said in a 2020 interview with the Clarion Ledger.

According to what Johnson has witnessed at Parchman and other state prisons, his research appears to back up the project's basic ideas, including "deepening our understanding of the power of spiritual practice in the midst of suffering."

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In addition to studying how religion impacts people inside prisons, it hopes to apply some of what is learned to helping people grow through faith outside prison walls.

"It's been a remarkable 18 months for me," Andrew Johnson said. "What really stands out is how quickly something can change. I think with new leadership that is willing to take a risk and say, 'I'm going to treat these guys with dignity and humanity, even if it exposes me to criticism.'"

MDOC had a seminary for men and last year opened one for women at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility to learn how to minister to fellow prisoners, so they can do peer-to-peer counseling and other outreach within the prisons.

Officials at MDOC welcomed Pepperdine's interest in the state's prisons and their faith-based programs.

"The Pepperdine research project chose Mississippi as a follow-up to a previous study of Commissioner Cain’s success in seminary, reentry and faith-based programs," MDOC spokesperson Kate Head said in an email. "These programs that were implemented in Louisiana proved to be very beneficial at Angola. The research project will be a study of how beneficial those programs are in Mississippi. The project includes meeting with correctional officers, inmates, and Commissioner Cain to see how these programs are beneficial to the lives of incarcerated individuals."

To learn more about the Pepperdine University research project, visit pepperdine.edu/center-for-faith-common-good/research/flourishing-captives.htm.

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This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: Pepperdine studies Parchman, faith-based programs