Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said the change agent for inmates incarcerated in the state’s prisons is a Baptist seminary.
Toward that end, MDOC has created a seminary program for inmates interested in becoming preachers and spreading the gospel to other prisoners more than 10 years ago. When Cain spoke on Mississippi’s prison system at Starkville Rotary Club’s weekly meeting Monday, he said the department has created functional churches for inmates to act in particular positions within a church — preachers, congregation members, choir members and more.
“It’s real simple — moral rehabilitation,” Cain said. “We say moral rehabilitation because it finds no enemies. … Don’t say something else though. You’ll mud it up. We don’t say faith-based. That’s not cool, but everybody wants to have moral rehabilitation.”
While MDOC is a governmental agency, and under federal law prisons cannot enforce any kind of religion onto its inmates, Cain said the department has found a way to separate church and state. He said he has contacted the American Civil Liberties Union regarding this issue and the proper ways the prison can carry out these churches and seminaries without impending on individual rights. The department does use food incentives to encourage inmates to attend church services.
Cain said MDOC does not care what religion inmates believe in, just as long as they are “good.”
While these prison seminaries have existed more than a decade, men were the only individuals allowed to participate up until May when a four-year seminary program was created for the women’s prison as well.
“Gotta do the women, too,” Cain said.
All parts of Mississippi are in a “rut” when it comes to crime, Cain said — Starkville has seen nearly a dozen violent crimes throughout 2021 — and evangelism is the way to change that. Cain said he believes if these inmates become preachers and spread the gospel with other prisoners allowing them to gain fruits of the spirit, then those prisoners will not only want to live a moral life free of committing violence, but also a religious awakening will happen throughout Mississippi communities.
“If we can change Mississippi, the whole goal… we can change the whole country with prisons, and we can do it with morality and with spiritual rejuvenation with our community,” Cain said. “These people whose lives we change that are in prison are going back, when they get out, to the worst communities in your state. … So, you can really envision true revival coming into our country out of our prisons.”
Gangs, COVID and addiction
Cain said another solution to fixing Mississippi’s prison system is eliminating gangs.
When Cain assumed his role in 2020, he said more than 6,000 gang members were inmates at various prisons across the state.
Now, after relocation efforts and harsher release regulations, only about 1,500 remain in the prisons. The main way to eradicate these members, Cain said, was by “cutting off the head of the snake” and sending the gang leaders to other parts of the country.
“We send them to another state, they send me another gang leader from their state, and then they don’t have a gang for them to lead (in their new prison),” Cain said.
Only 20 prisoners have died in Mississippi prisons from COVID-19, Cain said. MDOC takes precautionary measures with its inmates by extreme sanitation and cleansing and quarantining prisoners when necessary.
Just like the department offered food incentives for inmates who attended church, he said they also provided a bag of cookies to prisoners who received a vaccine, increasing the percentage of inmates vaccinated. For example, the rate rose from 70 percent to 90 percent at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl.
Cain lastly spoke of drug abuse within inmates. MDOC is creating a new program at Walnut Grove Correctional Facility beginning in October to help prisoners who struggle with addiction. As a rotational course, the department will educate and counsel 45 inmates at a time to assist them in overcoming their struggles.
“Addiction is a real problem with people in prison…,” Cain said. “We’re getting the drugs out of our prison.”
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