^ click to see larger ^

The Independent Sectorvalued a volunteer’s time at $23 per hour in 2015.  With 560,261 volunteer hours reported in 2012, that is over $13.4 million for one year. Therefore, upon facilitation of volunteers alone, chaplaincy recovers its entire operating costs over three times! Some volunteers are worth much more

Certainly, no one is going to read most of these, and few will read more than one.  What is interesting are the two revisions to the TBCJ Board Rule on donated property for religious purposes that had to wait 30 days with publication in the Texas Register.  The “no comments” to that publication is likely not that unusual, being that the readers are mostly lawyers and so few even attend the TBCJ meetings.

Why was such attention given to this?  Just to clarify seemed moot.  We shall never know, though we have initiated an Open Record request for a list of the donated projects.  We’ll see.

Of these 70 TBCJ summaries from 2007 to 2019—12 years—TBCJ meeting #130 to #203, this moderate analysis reveals how little chaplaincy is used, even minimized, related to their contributions in the facilitation of the vast array of volunteer and religious facilitation.

12 x Chaplaincy refers to one of the many volunteer awards, “from Chaplaincy”
            while most all the other awards are religious oriented under Chaplaincy

1x Chaplaincy, Barak Foundation personal property donation of 342 books to “Chaplaincy Program,” (TBCJ #130, 3-30-7).  In ten years, and from a single donation, yet most TDCJ Chaplains will receive individual and bulk donations of books and Bibles, newsletters, pamphlets and booklets of a value between $30-50,000 each year.

1x Chaplaincy, “addition of 20 additional staff positions to Chaplaincy Department,” (TBCJ #130, 5-24-7), though the minutes do not mention that 25 in all were added by the legislature, and TDCJ decided to put five into parole positions.

1x Chaplaincy, TDCJ Exec. Dir. Brad Livingston noted simply that that the “House and Senate appropriations bills restored funding for the TDCJ chaplaincy department” (TBCJ #154, 4-8-11).

1x Chaplaincy, in a long paragraph on volunteer contribution “TDCJ’s rehabilitative program” TDCJ Exec. Dir. Brad Livingston also added “success of the volunteer effort in chaplaincy” (TBCJ #160, 4-19-12).

1x Chaplaincy, TDCJ Council Sharon Howell proposed an amendment to TBCJ board rule 1. Section 152.71 to “clarify that donated buildings shall be used by offenders, to participate in programs with religious and other volunteers, the TDCJ Chaplaincy staff, and other programmatic personnel” (TBCJ #173, 6-5-14).

1x Chaplains – in Public Comments, 8-21-9, Jim Dinsmore “advised the TBDJ that there was great need for additional chaplains.”

2x Chaplain, 1x Chaplains 1x Chaplaincy, when Marvin Dunbar recognized Chaplain Vance Drum as “president of the American Correctional Chaplains Association, which is an affiliate of the American Corrections Association” and “Chaplain Michael Rutledge as the assistant director of the Chaplaincy Department,” the latter not a member of ACCA and whose position Dunbar created to leapfrog Rutledge from a unit chaplain to supervisor of chaplains (TBCJ #166, 4-5-19).

1x Religion, EEO correction of PD-12, “color, sex (gender), religion, national origin, age (40 or above), diability…” (TBCJ #146, 12-10-09).  

25x Religious, at annual volunteer awards, Religious Service, usually two.

1x Religious, from Public Comments, Alison Dieter spoke on “restoring religious services to death row offenders” and mentioned harsh conditions (TBCJ #136, 4-26-19).

5x Religious, on the agenda and in several minutes, related to BP-02.84 and Title 37 Texas Administrative Code Section 152.71, Acceptance of Gifts and Grants Related to Building for Religious and Programmatic Activities (37 TAC §152.71), TDCJ Counsel Melinda Bozarth noted BP-02.84 was identical to Board Rule 152.71, considered at a later meeting, and 37 TAC was under mandatory 4-year review and needed amending (TBCJ #146, 12-10-2009).

2x Religious, on the agenda and in several minutes, Title 37 Texas Administrative Code Section 152.71, Acceptance of Gifts and Grants Related to Building for Religious and Programmatic Activities (37 TAC §152.71), since no comment was made upon its publication in (12-09) Texas Register, TDCJ Counsel Melinda Bozarth recommended TBCJ adopt the rule as presented in packet (TBCJ #147, 2-11-10).

1x Religious, TDCJ Counsel Melinda Bozarth recommended changes to offender Disciplinary Rules, specifically Sec. III.B.3.d that “certain religious items may not be taken from an offender as a disciplinary sanction” (TBCJ #148, 4-8-10).

1x Religious, during Public Comments, Gloria Rubac spoke on behalf of death row and solitary confinement offenders and asked when “suspended programming will be reinstated, such as piddling, the work program, and religious programs” (TBCJ #168, 8-23-13).

5x Religious, on the agenda and in several minutes, Title 37 Texas Administrative Code Section 152.71, Acceptance of Gifts and Grants Related to Building for Religious and Programmatic Activities (37 TAC §152.71), TDCJ Counsel Sharon Howell presented the rule, “noting its amendment to clarify that donated buildings shall be used by offenders, to participate in programs with religious and other volunteers, the TDCJ Chaplaincy staff, and other programmatic personnel” (TBCJ #173, 6-5-14).

3x Religious, on the agenda and in several minutes, Title 37 Texas Administrative Code Section 152.71, Acceptance of Gifts and Grants Related to Building for Religious and Programmatic Activities (37 TAC §152.71), TDCJ Counsel Sharon Howell presented Board Rule 152.71 previously “noting its amendment to clarify that donated buildings shall be used by offenders, to participate in programs with religious and other volunteers, the TDCJ Chaplaincy staff, and other programmatic personnel” and that appeared in Texas Register (6-20-14) with no public comments, and she asked that it be finally adopted (TBCJ #174, 8-22-14).

1x Religious, during Public Comments, Pat Harwell spoke on solitary confinement reading an offender’s list of complaints, “no make-up for recreation time lost due to bad weather, and the deprivation of sleep, religious services,” and asked the TBCJ investigate (TBCJ #174, 8-22-14).

4x Religious, on the agenda and in several minutes, Title 37 Texas Administrative Code Section 152.71, Acceptance of Gifts and Grants Related to Building for Religious and Programmatic Activities (37 TAC §152.71), TDCJ Counsel Sharon Howell presented proposed amendments, as it is up for 4-year review, and “proposed changes do not affect any practice and clarify the responsibilities associated with donating buildings to the TDCJ” (TBCJ #202, 8-13-18).

4x Religious, on the agenda and in several minutes, Title 37 Texas Administrative Code Section 152.71, Acceptance of Gifts and Grants Related to Building for Religious and Programmatic Activities (37 TAC §152.71), TDCJ Counsel Sharon Howell presented the previously approved amendments, that it has appeared in the Texas Register 12-28-18 with no subsequent comments and that the board move forward with final adoption (TBCJ #203, 2-8-19).

   See Texas Register (v43:52, pp. 8568-69, pdf pp. 58-59), which changes are dramatic, though similarly moot, as if a volunteer org would hire unqualified builders or that TDCJ might have been somehow obligated prior to change to use unqualified builders, further secularizing and appear to make it harder for volunteers to build chapels.  One wants to ask if all the Board Rules were similarly scrutinized, especially since so few (if any) donated buildings or enhancements were ever done by purely secular organizations.  That is, I doubt any building or significant enhancement has ever been done by a purely non-religious organization.  That is, as most know, all or most all have been done for Chaplaincy Programs, or at least by those with religious motives, and mostly by Christians.  Be   interesting to see that studied.

   Were any prospective donor groups were invited?  I doubt it.  Likewise, where there any prospective donor groups in mind for these changes?  Or more simply, were there any current donor projects in progress at all? 

   Most all uses were during the Annual Governor’s Criminal Justice Volunteer Services Awards Ceremony. … now, maybe it is just a coincidence that two Board Rule changes happened during the four meetings where there were no significant volunteers invited.  Maybe not.

     The TBCJ looks at a lot of material for a huge agency. One might think the Chaplaincy Department within the Rehabilitation Programs Division (RPD) a small affair not deserving Board attention—a near non-entity in their reports.  And the Programs Division itself has never published anything significant on what the Chaplains do for the last 25-plus years.

    Volunteers are noticed once a year at the TBCJ meetings in the guise of an Annual Governor’s Award, some 20,000 strong, with numerous awards for a variety of services.  Look at the award names.  Good causes all of them.  What is not apparent is that most are for religious volunteerism.  Even the “Employee Volunteer” is most often a Chaplaincy volunteer.  Who “volunteers” for a strictly secular purpose?  The AA volunteer at the Gib Lewis Unit in Woodville for 15 years was a CVCA, Certified Volunteer Chaplains Assistant, and he volunteered for AA for strictly Christian purposes.  It’s the same for most volunteers, though the RPD has gone to great lengths to make as much volunteerism as possible appear non-religious, when the facts are actually the opposite.   

    What is NOT APPARENT and never related with clarity by the RPD or anywhere is that the 120 Chaplains are the staffers that facilitate 95% of the 20,000 volunteers, perhaps 99.999% of them religious.  But who knows?  The TDCJ and RPD have rebuffed efforts at honest analysis for decades, and the recent hiring of non-educated Dir. of Religious Services is just another part of the sad story of obfuscating the work of Chaplains and hiding the benign profession’s work.*

    Notably, at the 158th TBCJ meeting on Dec. 9, 2010, there was no mention of TDCJ’s plan to delete—i.e., zero budget—the entire Chaplaincy Department.  Only on the 154th TBCJ meeting on April 8, 2011, was there mention that Texas House and Senate restored funding.  The only—only—reason in Austin was that “the volunteers can do it all.”  That story was told in full in How We Saved Texas Prison Chaplaincy 2011—the Immeasurable Value of Religion, Volunteers, and Their Chaplains which detailed all.**  Volunteers are facilitated by staff, and no one cares for them more than the Chaplains, and Madeline Ortiz knew that when she attempted to kill the department.  The volunteers helped save it—and the TBCJ should have, too.

    The greatest source of change in human history is religion, and chaplains care like few.