Inmate Volunteers

Inmate Volunteer Programs

Prison education departments frequently make use of inmate volunteers. Since the demise of Pell grants, prison education departments have had their budgets severely reduced. As a result, they often turn to prisoners with advanced skills to volunteer as tutors. Across the country, prisoners instruct fellow inmates in reading, writing, and math, as well [Page 475]as in English as a second language. Some inmates hold advanced degrees and offer courses in business, history, creative writing, and so on.

Recreation departments also frequently rely on inmate volunteers to support many of the athletic programs. Prisoners volunteer to organize teams, to serve as referees and umpires, and to keep the detailed records of sporting activities required by the administration. Most facilities allow the volunteers to coordinate seasonal sporting events with several teams that compete against each other in softball, flag football, and basketball. Some institutions, such as San Quentin, even allow these inmate teams to contact and then play against similar teams from the community.

While many institutions have music rooms and even instruments, they may not be able to afford civilian instructors. Instead, they rely on individuals from the confined population to form bands to perform shows for the entire prison community. Inmate volunteers may also lead music theory classes and teach others to read music and play instruments.

Besides education and recreation programs, the psychology services department is another segment of the prison that extensively relies on inmate volunteers. One of the most important programs that runs under their supervision is the suicide watch program available in many institutions. When someone attempts to take his or her own life in the federal prison system, that person is taken out of the general population and placed on suicide watch. During this time, the individual is locked in an observation room where he or she can be monitored 24 hours a day. However, because there are not enough psychologists or correctional officers to be present all of the time, inmate volunteers take up the slack. The volunteers in the suicide watch program work in shifts, usually for four-hour intervals, sitting immediately outside the locked observation cell and recording the activities of the individual under the psychologist's care.

Psychologists also use inmate volunteers to participate in or even lead group counseling sessions designed to help new prisoners adjust to the complexities of confinement. Volunteers may also coordinate meetings for those prisoners who want to participate in the 12-step programs of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. Chaplains too, invite inmates to contribute to spiritual programs in similar ways.

Volunteer Programs Elsewhere

The United States is not alone in its use of inmate volunteers. In England and Wales and Northern Ireland, for example, a highly structured suicide prevention scheme exists in all prisons that depends entirely on inmate volunteers. Known as “listeners,” inmates are first screened and then trained by members of the crisis help group, the Samaritans. Once accepted into the program, inmate volunteers then have greater freedom of movement around the facility, as they are meant to be available to listen to any other prisoner who needs help dealing with the strains of incarceration. British prisons also have traditionally used inmate volunteers to run programs within minimum-security prisons for mentally and physically disabled children. Some even volunteer to help with the aged in nearby homes for the elderly.

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