Spirituality flourishes at Arizona State Prison-Kingman

A unique program at the MTC-operated Arizona State Prison-Kingman is helping inmates to find peace of mind.  Prison Chaplain Wayne Bayse is helping inmates to see the big picture and to understand, their time at the facility won’t last forever.  

When trying to win over skeptical prisoners to a life of faith, Bayse has something of an edge over other chaplains.  “I don’t just preach this, I eat, sleep and breathe it,” he said.

Bayse is a former inmate, a former drug addict who served hard time in California after a botched restaurant robbery in Los Angeles.  Bayse was booked into Los Angeles County Jail and placed in a cell next to Richard Ramirez, the notorious serial killer known as the “Night Stalker.”

Locked up in a California state prison, Bayse turned to religion, which helped him stay clean after his release. For the next 15 years he worked as a volunteer chaplain in some of California’s worst prisons. Now he has found employment as a chaplain at Arizona’s newest state prison in Kingman, a minimum-security facility for largely non-violent offenders.

With a stated goal of providing the treatment and training inmates need to rebuild their lives after release, the Kingman facility offers a wide variety of educational and rehabilitation programs, from high-school equivalency classes to alcohol and drug treatment.  With 1,500 beds, the site was built to offer a unique combination of drug treatment, education and spirituality to help prisoners change their lives for the better.  

(Posted 05/30/08)

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