Seminary offers more than degree

The graduates patted each other’s backs and nervously chatted with their families. Some sat quietly, meditating about their future while others wept.

It could have been a scene from any of the thousands of commencement ceremonies this year. But these graduates were convicted killers, rapists and drug dealers at Mississippi’s only maximum security prison.

The Parchman inmates received bachelor’s degrees in Christian ministry from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The accredited Southern Baptist school began offering prison courses in 1996 to inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La. Along with expanding to Parchman, the seminary works in Georgia and Florida prisons, said its provost, Steve Lemke.

The path to graduation was dangerous for inmates at Parchman. Some were beaten by prison gangs or mocked by the criminals they’ll soon attempt to counsel and lead to faith.

“The people are scared of you,” said the graduation speaker, Burl Cain, longtime warden at Louisiana State Penitentiary, who was at Parchman for the recent event. “Everybody’s watching you. They’re waiting for you to fail.”

But, Cain said, they will be expected to help transform prison culture through their faith.

Several religiously based schools offer educational programs in prison. They include Liberty University in Virginia, New York Theological Seminary and Mercy College, said Mark Early, president of Prison Fellowship, a national prison ministry. Columbia International University, a conservative Christian school, operates a degree program in South Carolina, graduating 15 inmates in December.

“This is very effective,” he said.

At the Parchman graduation, inmates draped caps and gowns over black-and-white prison stripes. The nearly two-hour commencement ceremony at the sprawling Mississippi Delta prison included guitar-heavy renditions of “Amazing Grace” and “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” performed by the prison gospel band, L.I.F.E, an acronym for Living in Fellowship Everyday with God.

“Thank you for giving us the crimes that we committed,” Thomas C. Smith prayed. “That we might be agents of change right here in this prison.”

Among the graduates was Jerry Mettetal who entered Parchman 20 years ago on a life sentence for killing a sheriff’s deputy and another person.

“This will be my new job,” said Mettetal, a former member of the Simon City Royal prison gang. “I came here and for a long time I didn’t care. God allowed something to come into this prison to show that people can change.”

James Wash, serving a life term for murder, said some inmates had to survive beatings to be released from prison gangs. When he left a gang to earn a bachelor’s degree, Wash said he was only “questioned” by the members.

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The program is not funded by taxpayers, but by the Mississippi Baptist Convention, a Southern Baptist state body, said Johnny Bley, director of Parchman’s faith-based initiative. The convention has provided more than $250,000 for the effort, which began in 2004.

An additional $185,000 or so comes from money generated from inmates buying snacks or using the telephone, state Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said.

The classes in Parchman and Angola are open to people from all religions, Bley and Cain said.

The Parchman inmates research the Bible and are taught how to preach, evangelize and counsel. Graduates hope to become “missionaries” who can transfer to other state prisons to serve inmates there. Two Parchman prisoners already have been reassigned to the South Mississippi Correctional Facility in Leakesville, said Bley, who also headed Angola’s ministry program when it began in 2002.

After the inmates become ministers, they’re treated with respect when they begin working in the other facilities, Bley said. When Angola inmates get to venture into medium security prisons, “it gets attention,” Bley said.

“They’re recognized that they have received this education and they know what they’re talking about,” he said.