COMMENTARY: Hookers have souls, too

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.) UNDATED _ They traverse the streets night and day, brazenly hailing their customers. They saunter with an impudence that conveys the […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ They traverse the streets night and day, brazenly hailing their customers. They saunter with an impudence that conveys the walkways belong to them. Yet their laughter belies great sadness and behind mascara-laden eyes lay hollow souls.


They are the hookers of my city and, for some of them at least, I was their pastor.

For nearly 18 months, from July 1993 to January 1995, I served as the first full-time chaplain at the Mercer County Correction Center, near Trenton, N.J. Commonly known as”the Workhouse,”the Correction Center housed inmates with a broad range of offenses, from traffic violations and solicitation to drug trafficking and armed robbery.

Among other things, I was responsible for providing the institution’s 700 inmates with religious programming and counseling services. It was within this context that I served as a shepherd to the ladies of Trenton’s streets.

And a wayward flock they were. Unkempt and filthy while working, they were hardly the stereotypical streetwalkers controlled by the Mack Daddies of the big city. In fact, while many of them were pimped by so-called boyfriends, others apparently operated independently.

Often addicted to crack or heroin, the ladies typically sold their bodies in exchange for drugs. In reality, it was the act of degrading themselves sexually that often fueled further drug use.

As one woman told me,”I needed the drugs to cope with (the fact that I was selling my body).”This woman eventually contracted AIDS and, through a compassionate parole officer, was sent to live with a sister in Virginia.

Yet despite the dog-eat-dog nature of their lives, the women I knew could be both vulnerable and compassionate. The same women who brazenly walked”The Stroll,”as the city’s red light district was known, and physically challenged male prison guards, wept openly when discussing offspring who were in foster care. It was not unusual to see them and the other female inmates comfort and pray with one another during Bible studies and worship services.


Even today, although my work in a major prison limits my time on the streets, my wife and I are amazed at the degree to which the ladies working The Stroll openly respond to Christian love. We know many of them by name and will not hesitate to chide them if we see them doing wrong.

Yet, as Jesus demonstrated with the adulterous Samaritan woman in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, even the most wretched individuals will generally accept correction if it comes from someone they know loves and respects them.

DEA END ATCHISON

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!