“He’s the best warden we’ve ever had,” says Jerry Williams, 51, one of hundreds of convicts selling food and handicrafts outside the stadium while an inmate band serenades the visiting public. Williams has served 31 years for murder.
“God always uses a vessel, and God has used Warden Cain,” says Carlwyn Turner, 47, a convicted rapist who is a disc jockey for the only federally licensed radio station in a US prison – the “Incarceration Station”. “Warden Cain has given a lot of guys purpose. That’s what keeps them going,” says Lane Nelson, 53, another convicted killer and “Death Row” correspondent of The Angolite, the prison’s award-winning newspaper.
It is hard to argue with such accolades. Cain, 65, a fervent Christian with a deep Southern drawl and the build of a refrigerator, believes he was sent to Angola to do God’s work, and what he has achieved there in 13 years is little short of a miracle.
He has transformed the most violent maximum security prison in America into its safest. He has turned Angola into a place where families with young children happily consort with convicted killers at the spring and autumn rodeos. He has brought hope where there was only despair.
This is a magnificent story—so much so that many people would hardly believe it.
I know some commenters (e.g., Brad Drell and Jackie Bruchi) have been involved in Louisiana prison ministry, and I’d be interested in hearing their perspectives.
Irenaeus, I have to agree. And a very good reminder that what we do or fail to do may effect a man’s eternal destiny. This warden is living the Gospel in a way that astonishes me.
I think we see the hand of God at work – a clear example ofwhat can be achieved through prayer and firmness