Stockade Chapel

As you have read, the county is building a new jail, and the plan is to move the prisoners at the stockade and LEC to the jail when it opens in April.

The stockade prisoners are serving up to 90-day sentences mostly for family court issues like failing to pay child support. A low risk population. LEC prisoners are awaiting trial for things like too many unpaid tickets up to murder. Some are high risk.

I watched the video of the August 27th county council meeting. At that meeting, four pastors who work in the prison ministry requested the county move the chapel now at the stockade to the new jail location.

The pastors said the Lord is using them, their ministry and the chapel to change lives. When some prisoners come in, often at rock bottom, the church symbolizes hope to change their life. It is a vital part of the rehabilitation effort. A couple expressed the fear without a chapel on the grounds, it would be easy for the sheriff’s office to phase out the prison ministry in its entirety.

The sheriff’s department said, the new jail will allow pastors and the department supports the ministry, but there will be no chapel. Instead it will have side rooms that could be used for fellowship or a service.

Additionally, using the chapel would require prisoners be escorted within the prison compound from the top-security cell block to the chapel across the parking lot. While that is a legitimate concern, it didn’t seem like a deal breaker to me.

For instance, we have low risk prisoners on our roads picking up trash, cleaning county buildings and working at the recycle centers. Likewise, the solution might be giving only low risk prisoners chapel privileges like they do at the stockade.

What amazed me, and the reason for this letter, is most councilmen objected to moving the chapel to the new jail from the start. One councilman, who probably never read an opinion on any government/ religion court case, said we’d surely lose a lawsuit to what he called the “ALCU”. (Actually it is the ACLU or American Civil Liberties Union.)

Another bemoaned the cost to move the chapel. When asked for a cost estimate, the councilman nor anyone else had one.

A third councilmen referenced opening prayers at government meetings, which is unrelated to how the courts would look at a case of a prison chapel.

One said he realized a physical church made the pastors feel comfortable, but he called that a “false sense of security”, and another councilman said “a building does not make the church.”

Listening to this crew I thought, if Jesus was surrounded by these guys, we’d still be worshiping statues and idols today.

On September 10th the council decided not to move the chapel to the new jail, as part of a 5 to 1 vote. Only Trey Whitehurst voted against and argued the chapel should be moved.

It is the sheriff’s job to bring the security viewpoint to the table. The finance department the cost viewpoint. The councilmen are to bring the community’s viewpoint to the table. The council failed miserably on that because they simply do not see the bigger picture here.

We are in a cultural war, and are losing badly. Anti-religious zealots are doing all they can to sanitize society of God, religious symbols and expression, and our leaders are just letting it happen. Granted their reasoning was different, but the council is on the same side as ACLU would be — against the chapel being at the new jail, and sadly the councilmen didn’t even realize it.

If our elected leaders do not wake-up and find the will to stand up, 25 years from now you will not recognize the county you grew up in.