By Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter
Rev. Dr. Renford Maddix pauses before answering one of The Gleaner's questions during an interview last week. - Contributed
THE REV. Dr. Renford Maddix goes about his work with quiet efficiency and with little fanfare, he gets the job done. It's a job few would envy him for - that of being a chaplain to the correctional institutions in Jamaica.
However, the Rev. Dr. Maddix, head of the Chaplaincy Unit of the Correctional Services Department, could not escape the radar of Prison Fellowship International, which in August, conferred on him its highest prize the Khoo Siaw Hua Award "in recognition of outstanding witness and service among prisoners and the prison community through the ministry of Prison Chaplaincy." The award was presented during the Seventh World Convocation held in Toronto, Canada, and was attended by more than 600 persons from more than 100 countries.
A Baptist Minister, the Rev. Dr. Maddix, after graduating from the United Theological College of the West Indies, Mona, in 1967, became pastor of the Bethany Baptist Circuit of Churches, St. Ann. He was there for five years until he became pastor of the Grace Baptist Circuit of Churches in St. Mary where he remained for eight years. Then he came to Kingston and pastored the Jones Town Baptist Church for 13 years. It was while at Jones Town Baptist that he got involved in the prison chaplaincy.
Just before entering the prison chaplaincy, he was an Assistant Police Chaplain; as such, he worked closely with the Rev. Dr. Vivian Panton, head of the Jamaica Constabulary Force's Police Chaplaincy. While there, he learnt of a vacancy for a prison chaplain. He showed up to be interviewed for the job and while walking with then Commissioner of Corrections, Juswyn Jarrett, along the corridors of the General Penitentiary (renamed the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre), he heard several inmates shouting from virtually every direction - "Rev. Maddix," "Pastor Maddix."
CONTACT
These were young men from the Jones Town and nearby communities who he had come in contact with in his work as a pastor in inner-city Kingston. "My interpretation of this, is that they were saying, 'We have been down here waiting on you. Where have you been?' It did not take me two seconds to make up my mind. That was the call. That was more than the call" (to the prison chaplaincy), he said.
He began his work as prison chaplain while pastoring at Jones Town Baptist. But, he explained, "It was not possible to do both. I came to realise that ministry in the correctional institutions was as important as ministry to a church's congregation. He soon resigned from Jones Town Baptist Church and began his work in earnest as Prison Chaplain in 1991. He is at present on secondment from the Jamaica Baptist Union.
He was the second person to be appointed chaplain to the prisons. His predecessor was an Anglican cleric, Captain Tyrone Reddie. The number of chaplains have grown under the Rev. Dr. Maddix's watch. He is one of eight persons who are prison chaplains serving the island's 12 correctional institutions. But the service could do with three more, he said.
SESSIONS
But what is the job of a prison chaplain like? "One of perpetual drama," is the answer that flows easily, yet somewhat guardedly from the mouth of the Rev. Dr. Maddix. Chaplains of the Correctional Services Department, the Rev. Dr. Maddix explained, conduct devotions, Bible studies and offer sessions in dispute-resolution, guidance and stress management.
"We are not short of crisis situations within the correctional institutions. It is a way of life within the institutions and the chaplaincy is always there. Hardly anything happens within the institutions which does not attract the ministry of the chaplaincy. For example the night in August 1997 when 11 bodies were taken out of the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, I was there till 11 p.m."
(A proposal in 1997 by then Commissioner of Corrections,
Lt. Col. John Prescod that condoms be made available to prisoners to reduce the spread of STDs was followed by widespread rioting in the prisons and the deaths of several inmates. Most of the prisoners killed were accused of being homosexual.
"It is not that we enjoy peace and tranquillity and once in a while this is soiled by a little disturbance. It is that we live in a perpetual state of drama. It is just an increase in intensity when the public learns of some of the upheavals," the Rev. Dr. Maddix said.
"Homosexuality is a major problem in our (correctional) institutions," he acknowledged. "I believe they can change. I don't think it is normal. I believe that by the grace of God they can change. I have seen change -- not a great deal in the correctional institutions, but I have seen it elsewhere."
POSITIONS
He continued: "The impression is given that anybody could be imprisoned and become a homosexual. But there are men who have been incarcerated for years and there is no way you could get any of them to change their positions (as heterosexuals).
"One of the major problems we have is that the homosexuals and the heterosexuals do not mix, not even in the chapels of the institutions. It is a major problem to integrate them. The progress is very slow. Most of the homosexuals there came in as homosexuals. Also, the feeling that 'Once you work in the prisons you are a homosexual', that is not true," he said.
Stress abounds within the prisons. The stress that incarceration induces is the leading reason for which inmates seek out the chaplains for counselling, the Rev. Dr. Maddix said. He explained: "Inmates experience a dramatic change in their lives in relation to what they were accustomed. Their movements are restricted, there's lifestyle adjustment, concern for their children, property. They have guilt and feelings of abandonment, low self-esteem. There's also the stress of adjusting to prison culture, and a sense of aborted dreams. For others, they are stressed thinking about how society will treat them when they are released. Yet for some, stress is induced at the prospect that on their release they will have to face the person(s) they have wronged and offended.
The Prison Chaplaincy does not exclusively serve the inmate population and their families, but also but staffers of the Correctional Services Department, a lot of whom, the Rev. Dr. Maddix acknowledged, are highly stressed. Their stress, he said, relates to the struggle to survive on low salaries, working in an environment that is less than ideal and being pilloried sometimes by the news media when errors and blunders occur.
Although declining to supply a figure, the Rev. Dr. Maddix said: "You would be amazed to know the number of probation officers and persons from the Correctional Services staff officer corps who are people of integrity and people of faith." These people, he said, helped to make the work of the chaplaincy easier. Also there is a significant segment of the prison population who are born-again Christians, the Rev. Dr. Maddix disclosed, yet declining again to supply a figure.
He said, "When you think of the number of members of staff and inmates whose lives have been transformed by the power of the Gospel, the number of (prisoners') baptisms we have had in the institutions, when you think of the number of persons who society has written off, when you see them swinging to the other extreme and defending the faith, you cannot but believe that an encounter with God has taken place."
The Rev. Dr. Maddix, while not distancing himself from successes of the Chaplaincy, is keen to give credit to teamwork among staffers of the Correctional Services Department. Furthermore, the Chaplaincy is aided by the work of volunteers, chief of which is the Inter-Faith Prison Chaplaincy Services, which is chaired by Audley Gordon.
VOLUNTEERS
The nation's churches, he said, are keen on doing ministry in the prisons. There are at present more than 500 volunteers from various denominations complementing the work of the prison chaplaincy. There is also a long waiting list of churches eager to get into the prisons to do worship services and devotions. The fact is that prison ministry is oversubscribed, says the Rev. Dr. Maddix. At this time there's a greater need for inmates to be given skills-training and this where the investment of churches would be welcomed, he said.
The Rev. Dr. Maddix is married to Erica, and they have two adult daughters. He confessed that there is not much that he would do differently if he were to re-live his tenure as head of the Prison Chaplaincy of the Correctional Services Department. He has few regrets.
What has the Prison Chaplaincy taught him about God? The Rev. Dr. Maddix said it has come home to him strongly that "God is omnipotent. And that God is no less present at the communion table than He is with the men of death row. Furthermore, God's love embraces the people in the church as it embraces the people in the correctional institutions."
