In Oklahoma, Episcopalians minister to prisoners, work for parole reform

By Pat McCaughan, June 04, 2009 [Episcopal News Service] After serving two years in an Oklahoma state prison, Melissa Serrano was paroled, but not released. At least not until six months later.

For another prisoner, Noel (who asked that his real name be withheld), the wait between parole and release was longer, about four years.

While they wait, Episcopalians in Oklahoma minister to their needs, and advocate for changes in the parole system, which now causes paroled prisoners like Melissa and Noel to remain in prison while the state's governor approves the parole board's granting of parole. The Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma passed a resolution at its 2008 convention calling for action to change the way the state deals with parole.

"I went to the parole board June 25, 2008 and so I was expecting to be released" soon afterwards, recalled Serrano, a 40-year-old disabled mother and grandmother with congestive heart failure, during a recent telephone interview from her Tulsa home.

But, since the state constitution requires that the governor approve every parole, pardon and commutation of sentence, Serrano was told it would take 30 days before her jacket, or case file, even reached Governor C. Brad Henry's desk.

"After 45 days, my mother started calling (Henry's office) and they kept saying he's reviewing it, that it could take anywhere from 60 to 90 days," recalled Serrano, who was a nonviolent offender at the minimum-to-medium security Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft, about 140 miles east of Oklahoma City. "She called every other week, then every week. And then she called every day. And it was 100 days, and it just kept going and going."

Serrano is among "thousands" of Oklahoma inmates yearly who are stuck between parole and release, contributing to overcrowded prison conditions and further sapping an ailing corrections department budget while exacting a costly human toll, said John Pearson. He is an organizer of Citizens for Responsible Parole (CPR), a group that wants to change the Oklahoma constitution to remove -- or at least limit -- the governor's role in the parole process, which would require voter approval.

"Many inmates just give up on the parole system altogether, and wait to be released instead," said Pearson, who has volunteered several years with the Diocese of Oklahoma's St. Patrick's prison ministry.

The current lengthy process also means inmates also have no support, and possibilities for homes or jobs dry up in the interim, he said.

Also overlooked are possibilities of transformation and restorative justice, said the Rev. Nancy Brock, a Lutheran pastor who oversees the diocese's St. Patrick's congregations in ten Oklahoma correctional centers. She estimated that one in 23 adults in Oklahoma is in prison, jail or on supervised release, compared to a national rate of one in 31 adults.

Four of five former Oklahoma governors support limiting the governor's role, but Henry has not publicly taken a position. Henry's office did not respond to several ENS requests for an interview. But Paul Sund, a spokesperson for the governor, has said in previous interviews that the process is very time-consuming for the governor, who sees "both sides of the issue."

"Oklahomans, particularly victims of crime, appreciate having one more check-and-balance in the parole system and one more set of eyes to review a parole recommendation to determine if it is appropriate to approve an inmate's early release," Sund told the Tulsa World newspaper last year.

"Regardless of the governor's opinion, it will ultimately be up to the legislature and Oklahoma voters to decide this policy question because it involves a change to the Oklahoma constitution," Sund added.

And that will require a massive awareness-raising effort, said Robert Rainey, a civil attorney and member of the state board of directors for the Department of Corrections (DOC). The board serves as an oversight and advisory agency.

For Henry, or any political appointee to support the change is tantamount to political suicide in "tough on crime" Oklahoma, the state that incarcerates more women than any other state and that ranks fourth in sending men to prison per capita in the nation, Rainey said. Consequently, any proposed legislation languishes in committee, he said.

Rainey, 49, a longtime member of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Edmond, an Oklahoma City suburb, recalled being "a lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key kind of guy," before serving on the DOC board. "It's been a huge wake-up call and very disturbing," he said.

DOC spokesperson Jerry Massie said the state pardon and parole board approves about 35 percent of the 600 potential parolees interviewed monthly. Of those, about 18 percent are released, compared to a 40 percent state parole release rate in 1991.

Pearson said Citizens for Responsible Parole will keep working, despite "operating on a shoestring budget," to build consensus on the issue among a broad range of faith-based and other groups. Included among those groups are: the United Methodist Church of Oklahoma; the Board of Directors of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections; Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board and the Oklahoma Public Employee Association.

The Rev. Mary Lord, a vocational deacon, leads weekly Wednesday services at the Eddie Warrior Correctional Center (EWCC), which houses about 785 women in Taft. She has seen lives transformed.

"A lot of the women ended up here because of addiction," Lord said. "Some had jobs, but got involved with someone, did drugs and here they are."

Melissa Serrano recalled feeling transformed after seeing a St. Patrick's service through a small hole in a cell door at the assessment and reception center in Lexington, a minimum-security facility. "They wouldn't let us out to participate," she said. "I hit bottom in that place."

Sentenced to four years on a drug offense, she was transferred to the Eddie Warrior facility and "as soon as I hit the yard, I found the chaplain and asked to be baptized," she recalled.

Two months later during a visit, Serrano's children also asked to be baptized. "I almost fell off the bench," Serrano recalled. "My daughter Brandi was pregnant. She was into gang-banging. I had prayed while I was locked up, because the neighborhoods we lived in, they're bad neighborhoods."

After Serrano's release, on February 22, all three -- son Casey, Brandi and one-year-old granddaughter Melina -- were baptized at Trinity Episcopal Church (http://www.trinitytulsa.org) in Tulsa.

Noel, 59, also said an encounter with an Episcopal chaplain transformed his life while incarcerated for murder. "I watched and I watched and watched, but he treated everybody the same," he recalled in a telephone interview from his Oklahoma City home. "His ministry changed a lot of people."
 
Imprisoned at medium-security Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Lexington, about 40 miles south of Oklahoma City, Noel earned bachelor and master degrees from the University of Central Oklahoma and tutored other inmates. The parole board approved him in 2005, but the governor rejected his parole.

Three years later, "I shouted for joy" when the parole board again approved him in April 2008., Noel said But he didn't leave prison until February 26, 2009, including a three-month-wait for Henry to concur.

"I thought about it every day," as the Department of Corrections (DOC) transferred him through various facilities, said Noel. "At some point, justice needs to be tempered with mercy," he added. "If the governor appoints the parole board, doesn't he trust their recommendation?"

-- The Rev. Pat McCaughan is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Provinces VII and VIII and the House of Bishops. She is based in Los Angeles.

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