William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, separated from the outside world by yards of razor wire and fencing, houses over 1,500 inmates, one third of whom are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Donaldson is named for a correctional officer who was murdered on the job there two decades ago. It can be a dangerous place.
“What level is Donaldson Correctional Facility?” I asked the warden as we prepared to enter.
“Six,” said Warden Hetzel, an affable, accommodating official who displays genuine concern for the men in his custody.
“Out of how many?” I asked.
“Six,” he said again. “We’re the only maximum-security state facility in Alabama.”
William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, separated from the outside world by yards of razor wire and fencing, houses over 1,500 inmates, one third of whom are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Donaldson is named for a correctional officer who was murdered on the job there two decades ago. It can be a dangerous place.
The warden told Greg Garrison of the Birmingham News, “This is where they send people they can’t handle anywhere else.”
Chuck Colson and a few dozen Prison Fellowship volunteers walked behind Donaldson’s walls today for an Easter weekend service in the gymnasium.
As we entered, volunteers found seats among the general populations inmates, all dressed alike in white collared shirts and white pants. Inmates rose to meet Chuck, shake his hand, and ask him to sign books or Bibles until the service began with a round of deafeningly loud worship songs.
“The Lord done brought me a mighty long way,” said one of the speakers who followed the worship set. The expression, straight out of rural Alabama, speaks to the effect of God’s grace on a person’s life, a phenomenon common to the prisoners and ex-prisoners—including Chuck Colson—who shared their testimonies with the inmates.
One of them, Ricardo Cook, once languished four years on Alabama’s death row. Since his pardon, he has become the pastor of a successful church.
He challenged the men who knew Christ to stand up and declare, “I’m new!”
Chuck Colson challenged the inmates not believe the negative messages society spread about them. He told the story of the inmate whose prayer in a prison chapel years ago opened the doors for the first Prison Fellowship program.
“Brothers,” he said, “don’t tell me that you are powerless in this place!”
That power would only come through a relationship with Christ. Inmates were invited to come forward and make a decision to accept Christ, or to rededicate their lives. One by one, several came forward to pray with volunteers.
On Death Row
No scene at Donaldson was more poignant for me personally than Chuck’s brief moments with the inmates on death row.
Donaldson houses two dozen death row inmates, all sentenced for murder. Some have languished there since the mid-1990s, awaiting the outcome of protracted appeals.
On death row, voices echoed off the hard, slick concrete floors, and the air smelled faintly of stale cigarette smoke. In the distance, heavy locks opened and shut.
I’m not sure how I expected inmates on death row to look. I’ve been to prison before. I’m familiar with the tattoos, and the prison-issue glasses. But somehow I thought death row inmates would look particularly dangerous, hardened, or deranged. They didn’t. On the street I wouldn’t have noticed anything different about them. Some were white and some were black; some were middle-aged, and some had a heartrending appearance of youth. To a man they were attentive, courteous, and friendly.
The inmates dragged heavy wooden benches across the floor to form a ragged circle. Briefly, Chuck shared his testimony and the Gospel. A few inmates had their Bibles with them, ready to follow along if the opportunity arose.
“A lot of guys become Christians pretty quickly on death row,” one correctional officer would later tell a PF donor. “I’ve been to a few of their baptisms.”
In a strange way, the burden of a death sentence can open prisoners up to receive the Gospel with enthusiasm. Understanding the depths of their sin and brokenness, they have no barriers to keep them from receiving the gift of God’s grace. And even in a place of apparent defeat and hopelessness, some of them have found the courage to see purpose in the midst of their suffering.
“Thank you for coming in and sharing your experience,” one inmate told Chuck. “I’ve been in for 17 years, and I have a 20-year-old son. He’s about to graduate high school and go to college. I praise God that because of my incarceration, he’s learned to avoid my mistakes. He’s going to church, and he’s doing well. He’s going strong.”
For the sake of his son, this inmate had learned to be glad about his sentence. In a similar way Christ, for the sake of a dying world, accepted the sentence of death in faith that God would bring good out of defeat. And on Easter Sunday, He did.