Daddy-Daughter Dance Held In State Prison

by Andy Corbley

Good News Network

   In a Louisiana state penitentiary, incarcerated men were able to dance with their daughters for one special night: many of whom had not seen each other for years.

   The tear-jerking occasion was organized by God Behind Bars, a nonprofit that partners with churches and ministries on behalf of jailed men and women, in Angola, Louisiana.

   “When I turned around and saw my baby in that dress and she busted out crying… I sobbed, man, and I ain’t no crier,” said Leslie, an incarcerated father in Angola, who participated in the dance.

   It’s potentially fair to say that the United States prison system and its population have been the victim of an overly-intense focus on punitive justice rather than restorative justice. While every society will have people that must be taken out of it for the good of the community, the focus of any prison system has to be the point at which the inmate reenters society.

   To that end, and pursuant to the best of Christian values that all men are created in the image of the Lord, God Behind Bars went above and beyond to put on an unforgettable night in one of the most notorious of all Louisiana’s prisons.

   Thirty-seven daughters attended the dance, aged between 5 and 20, with 29 fathers, each one of whom wore a suit donated by Amor Suits.

   Other donations included the time and expertise of hair and makeup estheticians, a beauty product bag courtesy of T3 Micro and decorations and floral arrangements by God Behind Bars.

   A Thanksgiving dinner was prepared before the dance, which included pieces choreographed by the fathers.

   “We’re supposed to be the worst of the worst and the hardest of the hardest… and we walk around like that sometimes,” said Kevin, one of the inmates. “Seeing all of us together with our kids, the loves of our lives, with no masks… that was cool.”

   “It’s hard to put into words what took place at the first ever Daddy Daughter Dance inside Angola prison,” said Jake Bodine, founder of God Behind Bars, in a statement sent to Newsweek. 

   “I watched a group of men stand with pride and dignity, shedding every label the world had ever put on them. For one night they were not inmates. They were Dad. And the empty places in every heart were filled with joy, laughter, and a love only God can author.”

   More stories from prisons, from Good News Network:

Nonprofit Provides Books For Prisoners

   Reginald Betts was only 17 years and imprisoned in solitary confinement when the lifeline arrived that would change everything.

   Someone delivered a book.

   “Imagine yourself as a teenager, 17 years old, in solitary confinement, and you’re just calling out, ‘Yo, somebody send me a book,’” Betts, who’s now 45, told the Washington Post. “Somebody sent me Dudley Randall’s The Black Poets, and it radically changed my life.”

   Betts entered the prison system after he carjacked an automobile in Fairfax County, Virginia, while a man was sleeping inside. He was tried as an adult and spent almost a decade in prison, with most of his sentence in solitary confinement.

   But one day, fellow prisoners used a rudimentary pulley system rigged up with torn sheets and a pillowcase to deliver the poetry book.  

   The metamorphosis began rapidly. He started reading every chance he got. He began writing too—and before long, he realized that education could provide an escape route.

   When he was released from prison, he went full speed ahead into his studies, earning a bachelor’s degree and then a law degree from Yale. He wrote poetry and advocated for prison reform. Eventually, he founded Freedom Reads, a nonprofit that provides libraries and books to prisoners all across the country, repaying exponentially the good deed he received in solitary confinement.

   “Prisons are the loneliest places on Earth,” says The Freedom Reads website. “This is a fact that our Founder and CEO, Reginald Dwayne Betts, knows all too well.”

   Since its inception in 2020, Freedom Reads has installed more than 550 libraries with more than 275,000 books and counting.

   For Betts, delivering books in prison represented “a community of people, working together to enrich their environments, against the odds, by transforming a place of desolation into one in which a radical idea would have a chance to blossom—freedom begins with a book.”

   One inmate in Maine named Chief Bear said, “It was a great surprise upon returning from work for the day and seeing all of those books and new shelves that they were on.”

   “It was kind of like seeing children on Christmas morning after all the presents were opened. I saw a couple of people out of their cell who you never see unless it’s meal time. The saying of freedom begins with a book is spot on.”

Inmates Care For Wounded Animals

   In Ohio, across multiple state correctional facilities, inmates are rehabilitating themselves by rehabilitating others: specifically the most fragile and vulnerable of others: injured or orphaned animals.

   Tiny birds—victims of a fall from the nest, baby rabbits orphaned by the wheels of a Ford, or little opossums lost when their mother took off at the first sign of danger—they all need a helping hand and careful attention if they’re going to make it back to the woods or the fields.

   At Marion and Richland Correctional Institutions, and the Ohio Reformatory for Women, the Ohio Wildlife Center trains interested inmates on how to feed and care for wounded or abandoned wild animals.

   Housed in special aviaries or even inside cages within prisoners’ cells, it gives them someone to care for, and in doing so, perhaps it helps them care for themselves.

   Between January and June at Marion, 284 animals were brought in for care, and Scott Fuqua a correctional officer and the program coordinator, says wants that to be 1,000 by years end; such is the impact it has had for the facility.

   “The effect that this program has on the offenders here is quite remarkable,” Fuqua told Olivia Young of Smithsonian. “The men who participate in this program get a chance to care for something other than themselves, and you can see the changes in their behavior. They tend to stay out of trouble, away from substance abuse, and have an increased interest to learn more about the animals they care for.”

   That might include even someone like Tierre M., who is well into his third decade of a potential life-sentence for murder. Tierre knows how to care for dozens of different species and situations.

   “Some of these birds coming in, it crushes you to see them,” he told Young, who visited the Marion Correctional Institute’s makeshift wildlife rehabilitation center. “Then, to see [one] getting stronger and the strength coming back in it, the life coming back in it, it’s awesome.”

   In 1994, some of those incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women began receiving training for how to care for wildlife, and have since helped rehabilitate thousands of orphaned animals under the guidance of the Ohio Wildlife Center.

   “It is important to our women that their time spent with us is transformative, and that it truly does help rehabilitate them,” said Clara Golden-Kent, public information officer for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. “That is the beauty of this program– the animals and the inmates are both being rehabilitated.”

   “I grew up with animals, and animals have always been a part of my life,” inmate Amanda Sawyer said in 2019. “The program helps us and it helps the animals, so I really look forward to it.”

   The Ohio Wildlife Center’s hospital treated some 9,000 animals from almost 200 species throughout the year so far, and many of them will require additional rehab before a release. This work is handled by volunteers, with 70 percent of that done in the prisons.