Looking closer at violence at jails and prisons

Monroe Corrections Center

I was privileged earlier this week to be available and listen to an officer in one of the units at the RJC about his stress over "the Officer Biendl situation."  I went into a unit to talk with inmates but none came forward. Very naturally, this officer just started to open up.  It's a rare blessing to be available to the staff.

Some inmates and officers alike radically improve their attitudes and behavior when any guest enters the units they are overseeing.

My good friend Gordon is a former inmate in Washington state DOC prisons. We knocked a couple e-mails back and forth about my two most recent blogs as we react to the Jayme Biendl death at the Monroe Corrections Center, in lockdown since the killing.

This is all the more reason to remain faithful to live out and proclaim the greatest good news in the universe--God sent His Son, the unblemished Lamb of God, to save sinners.  This is all the more reason to remain faithful to the stations where the Lord Himself has called us.


A percentage of officers like wearing uniforms so they can exercise power and treat inmates with over-the-line abuse.  The media reports about the inmates who attack officers. 

"The problem, Gordon wrote, " is not just one of noble, dedicated men and women risking their lives with dangerous prisoners...  Nobody documents the slurs, the shoves, the explicit and implicit violence committed by prison guards on their charges.  

"Why does that kind of violence happen?  Because any organization attracts a shadowy group of people who see opportunity.  Prison work attracts a percentage (my addition) of men and women who like to denigrate and punish other grown men.  

"No, they're not all like that.  I know and respect many officers I've met, and I have no wish to hold up one side of the equation to ridicule - but that's the point: there are two sides, and both need attention.  

"The problem is neither "how do we get the cons to behave?" or "how can we support the guards?".    It is simply this: How can we all learn to live with respect, humility, and kindness, convict and guard alike.  

"You know the answer to that, and maybe your expansion of your ministry to include staff is an implicit acknowledgment of it.  I guess Rodney King," Gordon closed, "was right after all: Can't we all just get along?"

No, we can't.  We've proved that.  We live in a sick and sinful world.

What is this all about?  What do we make of the violence in all directions?  Why is it so hard to work through all this?  We live amongst flawed people in a broken world.  We are flawed ourselves.  These acts of violence are evil.  There is no other explanation.  Evil ravages our broken world.  We can go round and round.