PRISON FELLOWSHIP: Burl Cain

When someone says “leadership,” what is the first thing that comes to mind?  For some, the first image of a leader is a captain of industry—a visionary like Steve Jobs who has changed the world with innovation and an indomitable spirit. 

A version of the following post originally aired as a BreakPoint commentary.

The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote that “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” He spoke from experience, having spent four years in Siberia after having his death sentence commuted.

Much has been written in this blog about Warden Burl Cain.  (See here, here, and here for examples).  During his nearly two decades at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, the prison has shed its reputation as the “bloodiest prison in America,” and has become a model for other prisons seeking to reduce violent assaults among prisoners.

For the last 20 years, the Willow Creek Association has presented the Global Leadership Summit, a two-day event that brings together leaders from both the business and church spheres.  This year the event was broadcast via satellite to over 300 venues around the world – including three locations not often considered for their leadership potential.

A controversial new plan to prepare inmates for reentry into society is being proposed in Louisiana.  The idea is to move a thousand prisoners from a minimum-security prison in the state and transfer them to Angola Prison, a maximum-security prison once infamous for violence and decrepit conditions. 

Burl Cain, a member of Prison Fellowship’s board of directors and the long-serving warden of Angola Prison, was recently interviewed by the Acton Institute for an article appearing on its website. Since Cain took over Angola in 1995, it’s gone from being “the bloodiest prison in America” to one of the most revolutionary.