What does it feel like to be in jail? Sheriff Mark Curran wanted to find out, so he sentenced himself to a week in lock-up!
"People who have never been in jail," he says wryly, "don't know what it's like to sit on the toilet in full view of everyone."
Lake County, the stretch of area north of Chicago to the Wisconsin border, is a land of extremes-- from the mansions of Lake Forest to the mean streets of Waukegan. The wealthy tend to be white, and the poor are usually African American or Latino. Inside the jail, the other inmates know who Curran is. Some act friendly when he says hello. Others turn away, or greet him with glares.
The sheriff says he understands the reaction, "I'm just another white guy—like the prosecutor, probably; like the person who sold him down the river; like the judge."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/155376/page/1
@Katharine: It sounds like only those who attend his Malachi program are required to read the Bible, but the program doesn't sound mandatory. And if you'd take the time to research other Christian groups that reach out to inmates you'll find some amazing success stories about how their attendees' recidivism rates are a fraction of the national average.
http://www.pfm.org/
http://www.billglasscfl.org/
Katahrine, you must know something that wasn't stated in the article, because I don't see where it says that the inmates are required to participate in his program.
It's just PR.
So why do it? He's showboating.
With that said, while he's receiving a government paycheck, it's pretty unconstitutional for him personally to bring religion into his workplace. (I know there are a lot of religious outreach programs in our prisons, and as long as access is fair and equal for all, that can be a good opportunity for the inmates. But when tax dollars pay the salaries of the people running them, that's totally different.)
Look at it this way -- if his Malachi program were about readings from The Qur'an, rather than The Bible, he'd likely be booted out of office pretty quickly, and the article in Newsweek would be all about that.
Now if we could just get politicians to temporarily live on the salaries of their constituents and doctors to spend time in their own hospitals, we'd be well on the way to creating more empathy in society.