c. 1999 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 _ Among the half-dozen or so books I am currently reading is asha bandele’s”The Prisoner’s Wife”(Scribner). Written in the confessional tradition of a previous generation of black writers, bandele reveals the ecstasy, passion and pain associated with being in love with a prison inmate.

In so doing, she challenges my own thinking about the wives, lovers and loved ones of the men I serve in my ministry.

One of the greatest challenges to pastoral ministry in prison is serving the needs of the inmates’ families. For while the emotional and spiritual needs of the inmates are mirrored in the lives of their loved ones, the security concerns endemic to the functioning of a prison often render impossible such services as parenting workshops and family counseling sessions.

Even more important, the stigma associated with an inmate’s crime is typically applied to his kin.

In the same way that the families of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are made to shoulder the blame for the Columbine High School shootings, the loved ones of prisoners forever share the prisoners’ shame. It is as if the judgments rendered to criminals in court must also be affixed to those they love.

How much more, then, when the relationship between the inmate and his loved one is a romantic one, and the ties that bind them are those of husband and wife?

In”The Prisoner’s Wife,”bandele (who spells her name with lower-case letters) describes in graphic detail the indignity of the stigma and the feelings of rage it engenders. The humiliations she describes _ the intrusive, albeit necessary questions posed by staff, the embarrassment associated with being strip-searched by guards, and the perpetual sense of Big Brother’s presence _ ring true in the testimonies of the prisoners’ wives I’ve come to know.

Several years ago, for example, during one of my first behind-the-walls premarital counseling sessions, the bride-to-be, a shy, self-conscious woman, shuddered involuntarily as she described the intimate way in which she was pat-frisked by a female corrections officer.

Others have spoken of their frustration over the lack of intimacy afforded them during visitation times. Still others have complained of insensitive treatment by staff.

As the institution’s pastor, my responsibility is to get to know the wives, encourage them, pray with them through family crises and, where possible, troubleshoot for them on problems that have gotten mired in the prison’s bureaucracy. In doing so I’m also able to relate to the inmate in a more personal way, thus strengthening our relationship apart from his family as well as helping to strengthen his bond with his family.

Yet for the spouse or loved one of a prisoner there is an even greater need for support. For, as bandele notes, the prisoner’s wife goes home alone. Though she may form strong alliances with the wives and girlfriends of other inmates based on shared frustrations with the criminal justice system, the reality is, like the convict she loves, each spouse must do her”bid”(prison sentence) alone.

In her own private world, she must answer all the”why”questions posed by family and friends alike:”Why did you marry him?””Why are you throwing your life away?””Why don’t you leave him?” For her part, bandele answers with five words that, as she put it,”later became this book. … That’s what I wrote, all down one page and then down another. This is a love story. This is a love story.” DEA END ATCHISON