By Ryan Cormier
Prison is the last place you would expect to find religion. But at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, inmates are discovering spirituality as part of their rehabilitation.
Prison chaplain Carl Wake is the first religious contact for inmates in the provincial institution.
“Normally inmates aren’t practicing religion when they come in, which could be a factor why they’re coming into prison,” Wake says. “Sometimes it shakes some inmates, and they start saying ‘wow, I need some help.’ ”
Through Wake, inmates have access to spiritual care, including various church services, Bible studies, and discussion groups.
He provides Bibles and other religious texts and one-on-one counseling.
Those who work with inmates believe spiritual help is vital to rehabilitation.
“Spirituality is an important issue to deal with if the whole person has to change,” says Rob Noyes, a support worker and counsellor with the John Howard Society.
“And if somebody has to change their behaviour, then they have to change their thought processes, their perceptions, their values along with that,” Noyes says.
“In prison, practicing religion helps them to focus outside of themselves,” Wake says
“When they’re no longer thinking so much about themselves but about their relationship with their God, they start taking steps to getting back on track,” Wake adds.
“If they don’t have something to live for, if they don’t have a purpose in life, they’ll just keep coming back in.”
Because Wake is only one man ministering to nearly 500 prisoners, trained volunteers from outside the institution do the one-on-one counselling with inmates.
Jim Dod, of New Life Ministries, is one such volunteer.
“I go into the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre and we meet inmates there on a one-to-one basis.
“I tell them, I can’t help you with your legal or financial problems, but I can help you with your spiritual problems,” says Dods.
He’s been working with inmates for five years and currently goes into the institution about three times a week.
“With most inmates, the biggest problem is alcohol and drug addiction,” says Dods.
“People who keep reaching out to addiction are really trying to satisfy something and they don’t know what it is. We take the approach that it’s a spiritual longing that they don’t recognize.”
The spiritual help for inmates doesn’t end at the same time as their prison sentence.
The Mentorship Aftercare Presence works with recently released inmates in the Ottawa area.
The group is a non-profit agency that is part of a re-integration program sponsored by the Ontario provincial government.
Their program involves a former inmate being set up with three trained volunteers for weekly or biweekly support meetings for up to a year.
The majority of those volunteers come from local churches.
“What we try to do is help people with housing, friendship, any social skills they may need to get. It’s making the step back into the community that we help with,” says Rev. Fritz Albert, a community chaplain within the group.
Dods also helps inmates after they’ve been released.
“A man is released from prison and he has nowhere to go, he has no support system,” he says.
“We try to connect them up with churches, strong individuals, employers, people that would give them a good chance in the community once they’re out.”