The Prison Diaries
The Prison Diaries are my notes from three days in prison back in May of 2025. I was in Mississippi and Louisiana as the acting photographer for an event put on by Lifeline Global Ministries. The photographs I took at Angola that I included in this blog were first published by Lifeline Global Ministries and all rights belong to them. The rest of the photographs are mine.
The Day Before
I’m heading back to prison tomorrow.
Every couple of years I’m sentenced by my convictions, but this time it’s a little more serious. This time they’re sending me to Angola.
Angola State Prison in Louisiana is the largest prison in the Unites States with over 6,000 prisoners housed there, 75% of them serving life sentences. Needless to say, this place isn’t all fun and games.
… but this weekend it will be.
I’m heading out with a group who will be putting on a carnival for the families of the inmates.
It’s all too easy to forget that the children of these men have been sentenced to life as well. Sentenced to life without a father, and 70% more likely to end up behind these walls themselves. This weekend, we try to break that cycle. Inmates who have completed the Malachi Dads program (a one year program designed to teach them how to be Godly fathers) will be allowed to spend the afternoon with their children. They will get to apologize, cry, hug, and share their new found hope with children who may not yet know what hope looks like.
Some would say these men have found Christ too late; I would say they found Him just in time. A life sentence is nothing compared to eternity.
… and so tomorrow I am heading back to prison as the photo journalist for the event. Keep Angola in your prayers.
The Returning Heart Celebration at Angola (Courtesy of Lifeline Global Ministries)
Day One: Mississippi
Some days in our lives count more than others.
Today was one of those days.
We drove out to Mississippi this morning and entered the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. We went through the regular protocols … the license checks … the metal detector … etc. My camera had been pre-approved a week earlier, so it made it through as well, and then we made our way to a church service that was already in progress.
There was a worship band rocking it up front … electric guitar, drums … the works. Close to a hundred men were in attendance … proof that church … great church … can happen anywhere at any time. God isn't limited by barbed wire or prison bars.
The music ended way too soon, and a young man named Wesley stepped up to the microphone. He was clearly a leader of men, and he spoke with confidence and authority. The very first thing he did was to introduce the eleven guests who had come to see them from California. They cheered for us, and then Wesley spoke the words that set the tone for the entire weekend.
“Men,” he said to his fellow inmates, “Today …. in this place … we are not forgotten.” It was a reference to the eleven of us, but it was also a reminder that they had not been forgotten by the God who created each one of them with a plan and a purpose for their lives. Nobody is too far gone to be out of God’s reach.
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These men gave up their freedom by the mistakes they have made ... but they did not give up their humanity. That is something that we all too easily forget ... so tonight ... men of the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility …. you are not forgotten.
Church at the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility in Mississippi
Day 2: Angola
There are currently 54 men and 1 woman on Louisiana’s death row. Today, I met four of them.
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There was a tour of the prison grounds planned for the volunteers this morning, but the interview I was working on ran late, and I assumed I had missed it.
Fortunately, I arrived just as the bus was getting ready to pull out, so I ran and jumped on. I had missed the orientation speech, so I really had no idea where we were heading. The guide (who I found out later was actually one of the wardens) saw my camera bag, and informed me that I wouldn’t be allowed to take pictures on death row. Somehow, the meaning of her words didn’t sink in.
We drove out a ways, and she mentioned death row again. This time, I assumed that we were going to drive past the building where these men were being housed. It was going to make for a cool story. I would be able to tell people that I had seen the actual building where the most notorious 54 men in the state of Louisiana were being held. Not too many people can make that claim.
… but then she elaborated.
“These men do not get many visitors, so feel free to talk to them. They will be happy to talk to you.”
What?
I have been having problems with my ears for the last year. There is a lot of pressure behind my ear drums, and they often buzz when we are singing in church, but up until now, they have never made me hear anything crazy. How were we going to talk to prisoners as we drove past their building?
… and then the bus stopped.
Up until now I had met nothing but decent men behind these walls. I had assumed the real monsters were being held somewhere else … you know … like on death row.
… and then we got off of the bus and walked right on in.
After being buzzed through, we were standing right smack in the middle of death row. The cell doors were all open, and the men were walking around.
Bobby was the first man to greet us. He is a big man with a bigger smile, and he greeted our guide (the warden) with a hug, and shook the hands of everyone around him. It’s hard to imagine meeting a friendlier man, only this man has been sentenced to die.
The reality of that hit me hard.
We were then led to their prison yard. It wasn’t much more than a basketball court with some weights on the side, and a makeshift pickleball net set up in the middle. Three men were out there … the warden opened the gate and let us in. Two of the three greeted us with handshakes … and smiles … and stories. The third wasn’t friendly at all, but I am not going to talk about him right now. I looked him up when we got back to the hotel, and his story is a scary one. Still, some of the men who had come with us did manage to pray with him … and he mumbled that no one had ever prayed for him before. He mumbled a lot, and seemed to be constantly fighting the demons in his head. Ok, I guess I did end up talking about him …
… but the other two men on that yard just wanted to talk … wanted to be heard … wanted to be prayed for. We had a former inmate from Angola with us, a man named Ron Hicks, who might just be the most impressive man I have ever met (I will talk more about him later). These men all knew Ron and asked him to pray for them. He did, and then we all said our goodbyes and headed back inside.
When it was time to leave, the warden told us that Bobby … the big inmate who had been the first to greet us on our arrival … wanted to bless us before we left. He then leaned back and belted out an a cappella gospel song. The angels in heaven wouldn’t have sung it any better, and looking around, there weren’t too many dry eyes. I’m not usually an emotional man … and I was hoping that nobody could see the tears in my eyes. Oh, who am I kidding. I’m crying right now as I type this. No decent society can put a man like Bobby to death and not be substantially worse for doing it.
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I was pretty sure I was not going to find anything but monsters on death row, instead I found a large man with a big smile, and the voice of an angel.
… and I found myself.
This afternoon I am not the same man I was this morning … and tomorrow, I will be photographing inmates being reunited with their children at the carnival that we have set up for them. I only hope I can frame some photos through the tears that I know will be coming.
When did I become an emotional man?
Prison will do that to you.
The Returning Heart Celebration at Angola (Courtesy of Lifeline Global Ministries)
Day Three: The Carnival
It turns out I am a smiler. Strange, because my students always tell me I never smile, and it’s kind of true. I don’t smile often … I never cry … I’m really sort of an emotionless robot.
Not today though.
An older lady at today’s carnival came up and told me that every time I would take a picture … I would smile. I thought about it, and she was right. I took over 2,500 pictures this weekend, and for most of them I was either smiling, or I had tears in my eyes. In fact, later in the day, I checked my view finder to review some of the recent shots that I had taken. They were all blurry, and I panicked. What had I done wrong? It then dawned on me that with each new picture that I looked at, my eyes were filling with tears. The photos were perfectly sharp, it was my stupid eyes that were causing the problem. That happens when you are looking at the most meaningful, the most impactful, photographs that you have ever taken.
Unfortunately, none of them are mine to share. They belong to the organization that I was photographing for, and for legal reasons, I can’t post them on my own social media. Since I can’t share the photos, I will do my best to paint a mental picture for you.
It was a day filled with children running into the arms of their fathers when they first arrived. It was a day filled with hardened inmates laughing and smiling as they embraced their children. It was a day where these men played carnival games, and held the hands of their young children, and through it all, the smiles never left any of their faces.
At the end of the day, when it was time to say goodbye, there were tears (and not just mine), and hugs that lasted a little longer than they had earlier in the day. When the warden told them all to say their final words to their kids, more than half of them huddled up with their families and prayed. They understood that these final words would be the most important ones, and they wanted to be sure to raise their children up to God in prayer. Many of these men had found God since arriving at Angola … or more accurately, God had found them.
The Returning Heart Celebration at Angola (Courtesy of Lifeline Global Ministries)
The Man
I don’t have a lot of heroes. In fact, up until this week, I only had three … Jesus, my dad, and Jackie Robinson … in that order. This week, I added a fourth.
We had arrived a little early, and I sat on a bench outside of the Angola museum waiting for the others to arrive before being processed in to the prison. As I sat there thinking about the day ahead, a car pulled up and a man stepped out that had an aura to him … the kind of aura that lets you know that there is something different about this person … something special. His wife stepped out of the car as well … same aura … same kind of special.
I didn’t think about it again until later that afternoon when I noticed that the two of them were on the same bus as me heading back to death row. We made a stop at the notorious Red Hat … an historically brutal cell block which also once housed the state’s execution chamber and electric chair. It’s now on the national register of historical places, and stands as a reminder of a much less humane period in our past.
This man and his wife ( I found out later that they had only been married for three weeks) walked around Red Hat quietly … contemplatively … seeming to take it in on a deeper level than the rest of us. There was a calmness to the man in everything he did.
Then we arrived at death row. The inmates knew him … they lit up at the mere sight of him. I still didn’t know who he was … but there was no doubt now … this guy was special. We didn’t leave death row until he had hugged them all and gathered them around him for a prayer.
This scene repeated itself any time a group of inmates saw him. Their faces lit up at the sight of him … his face lit up at the sight of them. There were always hugs … and prayers … and it was obvious that their lives were somehow better because of whatever it was that he had done here in the past.
I found out later that what he had done here in the past, was some serious time. Ron Hicks was 33 years into a life sentence when he was finally released in 2023. In those 33 years, he left a legacy that few men can match. He was an original member of the Malachi Dads program that teaches prisoners how to be Godly fathers, and was the spiritual leader of a prison that now boasts 33 separate churches that worship God on a weekly basis.
... and he loves these prisoners that he taught over those many years … and they love him back tenfold.
As we left the prison that afternoon, we passed a hall that was fenced off from us. When the inmates in that hall saw us walking by, they pressed up against the fence to call out to Ron. I heard one of them say, “Man, you are our hope. You overcame.” … and of course, they all prayed together before he walked out with us and then back to his car where he drove away … no longer a prisoner … with his new bride by his side.
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It wasn’t until later that I received the full impact of what this man is made of. After the Malachi Dads graduation was over, he was called up with two other former inmates to answer some questions about their time in the program. This quiet, unassuming man changes once he has a microphone in his hand. He speaks with the authority and power that only comes from a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit. When a man like Ron Hicks talks, you are wise to listen to every word … because you won’t encounter this kind of teaching too often in life … and this was simply a question and answer session. I can only imagine what a sermon would sound like.
… and soon some people in Baton Rouge will be finding out, because he just acquired a building where his new church will be starting up.
So I now have a new hero to add to my list. Ron Hicks was a man that society tried to throw away, but God was having none of it. Instead, God used him, in his situation, to change the hearts of the other throw aways, and gave them all the hope that can only be found in Jesus.
Ron is a living testimony of the power of redemption … but he is not alone. I met many men in both in Mississippi and Louisiana this week, that are also living testimonies to what God can do. These men are not throw aways … they are not forgotten … and God will continue to use them all to do amazing things.
Pastor Ron Hicks at the Sanctuary Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The End of It
I stood with my camera at the ready, looking for the shot … the one that pulls at the heart. The one where I capture the moment when a young child races across the field and jumps into the arms of her waiting father.
Instead, I found Corey.
He was looking across the pavement at the gate … waiting … hoping that his own two daughters would soon rush through. He had been counting the days; there’s a lot of time to count days when you are locked behind the walls of Angola.
Other kids came rushing in, picked up and hugged by their dads. Other inmates who were hoping to make up for lost time as well.
Their kids came rushing in … but not Corey’s … not yet.
I watched as he shifted from side to side … anticipation started to look more like worry. The flow of kids through the gate was starting to slow. Was it possible that they weren’t coming?
… and then they were there and the worry left his eyes, replaced by a smile that could melt ice. I stood frozen as I watched them race to him and crash into his arms.
My friend Ed was assigned to watch over this family. He asked the girls what they wanted to do. There was a carousel, carnival games … food. They told him they just wanted to spend time with their daddy, so most of the day they sat together, played cards, and talked.
As the day neared an end, the girls started to get emotional … they hugged on their dad a little more, and when it was time to finally go, the family asked Ed to pray with them.
My last photograph of the weekend was a picture of the two girls hugging their dad so tightly that their knuckles turned white. His t-shirt wet from their tears, his face buried in their shoulders. It was an incredible photograph, but the heart can only handle so much break, so I turned and left them to their final moments.
This photo will be my lasting memory from the trip. A father and his two girls, clinging to each other in an effort to keep the rest of the world from coming between them.
... but it soon will.
A heart can only handle so much break.
If the ministry of serving those in jail is something you would like to support, look into giving to Lifeline Global Ministries. www.lifelineglobal.org
