Jade01
07-03-2005, 10:03 PM
http://www.ardemgaz.com/ShowStoryTemplate.asp?Path=ArDemocrat/2005/07/01&ID=Ar01600
Tucker worship center’s completion planned for next year
BY LAURA LYNN BROWN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
TUCKER — A groundbreaking ceremony at the Tucker Maximum Security Unit on Thursday for the Frank King Chapel marked the culmination of a 12-year effort to give inmates a place dedicated wholly to worship and introspection.
Instead of going to religious services in the chow hall and sitting on fixed stools under fluorescent lights where sound bounces off cinderblock walls, they will come into a two-story space with many long, narrow windows allowing natural light.
"I wanted them when they come into the chapel to feel like they’re in a little better space than they’re in right now," said Richard Bailey of Woods Caradine Architects, who designed the 50-seat chapel.
It will be named for Frank "Buddy" King, who was a Catholic chaplain at Tucker, an advocate for inmates on death row and the first to plan a chapel for the prison.
He had agreed to be chairman of a committee to raise the $225,000 cost of the chapel when he died in 2003 of a heart attack.
Renie Rule of Little Rock, who led the effort after King’s death, spoke before the groundbreaking about the chapel as "a visible reminder of our mutual love and concern for all employees, families... and the inmates who will always be our brothers."
Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and other churches donated part of the cost, she said. She complimented the Department of Correction for its willingness to let people from the private sector go forward with the plan for the chapel.
David White, warden over Tucker’s 532 inmates, said, "Anybody in this business realizes the positive impact that a religious facility has." Tucker houses many of the state’s "more recalcitrant" offenders, he said.
Don Yancey, administrator of religion services for the state Department of Correction, said that about 25 percent of prisoners in the state’s 14 units attend some kind of service on Sunday mornings — comparable to the 20 percent to 40 percent of people estimated nationwide.
Yancey said that some prisoners tithe their limited funds and designate the money for the chapel.
The largest donation from a prisoner so far was $1,500, and the smallest was from a prisoner who had only a penny to give, he said.
"It’s giving them pride in something that is theirs," he said.
Religious services create "a calmer, more peaceful atmosphere" in the prison, Yancey said.
In the week after a revival, he said, incidents requiring disciplinary action drop as much as 70 percent.
Yancey acknowledges that some inmates get "jailhouse religion" to improve their situation, but he thinks it accounts for fewer than 1 percent.
Members of 10 central Arkansas area churches and the Islamic Center in Little Rock conduct about 30 worship services a month at the prison, said the chaplain, Patrick Mc-Cown. Average attendance is 25, he said, and musical groups are popular. "They like to sing along," he said.
When the new space is finished in fall of 2006, it will include a larger office for Mc-Cown, as well as a library, a storage room for musical instruments and two classrooms, giving inmates a private place to meet one on one with volunteer certified religious assistants.
Volunteer Anna Cox of Little Rock was one of 10 people who dug gilded shovels into a strip of already turned earth to make the groundbreaking official. Cox has worked with inmates ever since one called her in the early 1990s after he saw her name in the newspaper and realized he wasn’t the only practicing Buddhist in the state.
She leads monthly meditations at Tucker and another prison and has worked with inmates on death row. Visitors who help inmates with issues of faith remind them "that the world has not forgotten them and that they know there’s a world to go back to," Cox said.
Tucker worship center’s completion planned for next year
BY LAURA LYNN BROWN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
TUCKER — A groundbreaking ceremony at the Tucker Maximum Security Unit on Thursday for the Frank King Chapel marked the culmination of a 12-year effort to give inmates a place dedicated wholly to worship and introspection.
Instead of going to religious services in the chow hall and sitting on fixed stools under fluorescent lights where sound bounces off cinderblock walls, they will come into a two-story space with many long, narrow windows allowing natural light.
"I wanted them when they come into the chapel to feel like they’re in a little better space than they’re in right now," said Richard Bailey of Woods Caradine Architects, who designed the 50-seat chapel.
It will be named for Frank "Buddy" King, who was a Catholic chaplain at Tucker, an advocate for inmates on death row and the first to plan a chapel for the prison.
He had agreed to be chairman of a committee to raise the $225,000 cost of the chapel when he died in 2003 of a heart attack.
Renie Rule of Little Rock, who led the effort after King’s death, spoke before the groundbreaking about the chapel as "a visible reminder of our mutual love and concern for all employees, families... and the inmates who will always be our brothers."
Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and other churches donated part of the cost, she said. She complimented the Department of Correction for its willingness to let people from the private sector go forward with the plan for the chapel.
David White, warden over Tucker’s 532 inmates, said, "Anybody in this business realizes the positive impact that a religious facility has." Tucker houses many of the state’s "more recalcitrant" offenders, he said.
Don Yancey, administrator of religion services for the state Department of Correction, said that about 25 percent of prisoners in the state’s 14 units attend some kind of service on Sunday mornings — comparable to the 20 percent to 40 percent of people estimated nationwide.
Yancey said that some prisoners tithe their limited funds and designate the money for the chapel.
The largest donation from a prisoner so far was $1,500, and the smallest was from a prisoner who had only a penny to give, he said.
"It’s giving them pride in something that is theirs," he said.
Religious services create "a calmer, more peaceful atmosphere" in the prison, Yancey said.
In the week after a revival, he said, incidents requiring disciplinary action drop as much as 70 percent.
Yancey acknowledges that some inmates get "jailhouse religion" to improve their situation, but he thinks it accounts for fewer than 1 percent.
Members of 10 central Arkansas area churches and the Islamic Center in Little Rock conduct about 30 worship services a month at the prison, said the chaplain, Patrick Mc-Cown. Average attendance is 25, he said, and musical groups are popular. "They like to sing along," he said.
When the new space is finished in fall of 2006, it will include a larger office for Mc-Cown, as well as a library, a storage room for musical instruments and two classrooms, giving inmates a private place to meet one on one with volunteer certified religious assistants.
Volunteer Anna Cox of Little Rock was one of 10 people who dug gilded shovels into a strip of already turned earth to make the groundbreaking official. Cox has worked with inmates ever since one called her in the early 1990s after he saw her name in the newspaper and realized he wasn’t the only practicing Buddhist in the state.
She leads monthly meditations at Tucker and another prison and has worked with inmates on death row. Visitors who help inmates with issues of faith remind them "that the world has not forgotten them and that they know there’s a world to go back to," Cox said.