WITHIN THESE WALLS

A Texas prison chaplain recounts his experiences ministering to the condemned, arguing throughout that capital punishment is morally wrong.

“Killing to prove that killing is wrong turns logic on its head,” writes the now-retired Pickett, who has since become an anti–death penalty activist. “With each execution that is conducted, a new set of victims is created.” Inclined, perhaps against reason, to believe in the fundamental decency of people—“If I could not trust in the basic goodness of mankind, even those imprisoned for the cruelest of deeds, how could I be expected to serve my purpose?”—Pickett still recognizes, in this anecdotally driven sermon, that prisons harbor some genuinely nasty characters. He sketches a few, including a particularly hard murderer who privately confessed his crimes but insisted on his innocence even with his last breath, as well as a fellow who beat the author badly for refusing him an extra phone call. But most of the prisoners, as Pickett depicts them, were victims of circumstance and poor judgment, and an astonishing number became dead men walking for ill-considered responses to matters of the heart—that is, they slew their wives and girlfriends in so-called crimes of passion. Pickett’s sentimental view of the denizens of the big house will not convince eye-for-an-eye types, and even readers inclined to rehabilitation over retribution will wonder at some of his accounts; he can’t believe, for instance, that one of his church-going, choir-singing clients could possibly have molested children: “I’ve never met a nicer person,” he protests, with characteristic mildness, without entertaining the possibility that good manners and singing ability do not necessarily make a good person.

Pickett and coauthor Stowers write well, and, although the intended audience is not entirely clear, clerics contemplating ministries behind bars will find this useful background reading.