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One Man's Journey Behind the Walls printer-friendly

By Steve Maurer

1:30 A.M. - The harsh jarring call came over the squawk box in the county jail dormitory - my last name and the last 4 digits of my booking number followed by the words, "come down, you're going to prison!" The other thirty-some inmates in my jail dorm pretended to be asleep and not to hear the dreaded words -"you're going to prison." One or two guys groggily shook my hand saying, "good luck, man."

To say that one has no fear of the unknown in this situation would simply be untruthful. I was scared, resolved, depressed, sad, and holding onto my trust in my Savior all at the same time-that is if the Lord still would even be associated with my name.

After a 3 ½ month trial and time in the county jail, also known as the "county zoo", I had been sentenced by the judge for the 1 count of conspiracy the jury brought. They dismissed the other 16 related counts in the high profile case. Now, 7 days later I was being handed off from the county to the state-to prison in the dead of night. My anxiety level was off the charts. I had no idea what prison would be like though I had heard all types of horror stories from fellow inmates. Above all, the sickening thought that I would be there for a year pervaded my senses, driving me deeper into a black depression.

I was alone. I knew no one. There was no one to help me or show me any kindness or mercy here. I entered the land of the forgotten.

After waiting for what seemed to be many hours, I was shackled, unable to move more than a few inches and put on a prison bus. The seats were rock hard and so close I had to sit sideways in order to keep my legs in. It was dark outside and even darker was my soul. Hope doesn't exist here, only a sense of an impending dark fate. We were the select who had more sentence time to do than the others who would or could, serve in the county jail. I could have served my time in the county, but the judge wanted to make an example of me by sending me specifically to CDC. So I started the journey. We were the ones who didn't need to be shown courtesy or respect, rather, like animals to be herded. There was no mercy here. There was no grace. There was no more hope.

You ride along in a dark silence, never slowing for curves, being crushed into the stranger shackled next to you, all the while hoping that this wouldn't be your last ride because someone flew into rage.

"Reception" is what they call it. That is a nice way of saying it. "Reception" -greeting, welcome, party, function, get-together. That definition is of everything "Reception" is not. We arrived at 3:30 A.M. were put off the bus and herded into a building where we were unlocked, facing a wall, stripped searched. I turned around in time to have a wad of crumpled orange "prisoner labeled" clothes and hit with a barked order to get dressed. We struggled into the odd sized clothes hoping our bodies would fit, and that our pants would even stay up. The shoes, known as "jap flaps," were size 8 (1/4 inch soles). I take a 10, so my feet just came out the back. There were no exchanges; you got what you were given and no one asked your size.

We were put into 3 cages while orders where barked at us without the aid of any type of amplification so we heard every 3rd word at best. I figured that part of the job description of a Correctional Officer was to be able to scream like a drill sergeant. It was over 100 degrees in the room. There was no 68 degree dorm-like county jail with 20 to 30 other guys. This was "Reception" and human comforts were nonexistent. After being run through a gauntlet of nurses and medical practitioners and an eight hour waiting process, by 7 P.M. we were put into a cell on the reception yard.

The cell was 110 degrees with heat blowing out the AC vent. Everything in it was steel with an all-in-one toilet, sink and fountain (with 80 degree cold water) made of stainless steel in the corner. We had one window about 5 inches wide by 36 inches tall. If you looked out we could see the San Diego/Tijuana border wall about 500 yards away. The rest of the view was guard towers, lots of dirt, and serpentine wire added to the electrified fence. The walls were grey cement, unplanted with graffiti drawn over nearly every square inch. All you could smell was the melting state soap bars.

The cell was about 5 ft. wide by about 10 feet give or take. The cell door was only opened by the tower where a C. O. patrolled with an M-16 above a large sign which simply said: "NO WARNING SHOTS!" If you needed to get someone's attention outside the cell, you could scream through the door on one of the patrols which came by very irregularly. They would generally choose to ignore you. Some of them found fun in waving at you like a zoo animal and then walking on. Others would hold up one finger as though they would come over to talk with you, but then just walked on.

My "cellie" was there on a parole violation and was a white supremacist with the tats to prove it. He had consented to the murder of a homosexual in Utah and had done about 15 years in the system.

I discovered that there are levels of prisoners. I was Level one with 5 points. Level 2 starts at 19 points and they ran all the way through Level 4 (max. security types). But in my Reception Yard, all the levels were mixed, so there were stabbings every day. They "showered" us (let us go to various showers in a building of 400 inmates) every 3 days for about 5 minutes. However, it was 5 days before I got a shower. As a "new fish" you only have the unfitted clothes you were given and no additional laundry. No one orients you or tells you anything; you find out from your cellie. But in the end, the anxiety of never knowing what to expect, no clocks, no cold water, and one pair of clothes does the work of breaking your will, your spirit and your hope.

The one question everyone kept asking me was, "what are you doing here?" The main comment was, "you don't look like you belong here."

After a day of "reception," I was taken to the medical unit and put into a smock and put in a 10ft. x 12ft air-conditioned unit with a mat on the floor and a toilet. It had a nice clean floor and enamel walls without graffiti. I have a titanium total shoulder replacement implant and they put me there to detox from the pain medications I was being given in county jail since I wouldn't be getting them anymore in state prison. I ended up in this little cell on a 2 inch thick plastic mat on the floor. They put me in the psychiatric wing with random shrieks and screams in the dead of night in case I got suicidal. I was there in solitary confinement other than meals slid under the window 3 times a day. There was no medication for pain or much else. After about 5 days I just figured that I'd have to deal with the pain since no one came by to talk to me. This was just a place to be away from the General Population.

It is amazing what being alone for a week will do to you when you have no one to talk to. Tapes start to play in your head and after a while, they won't shut off, so you are up all night. Eventually you want to go back to the cell just to be able to see or talk to someone. It took 10 days for them to find an opening for me back in "reception." When I got there, I had moved on the same yard from building 16 to building 20 where I was re-housed with my same original cellie. I was too weak to be able to stand for more than a few seconds. My cellie, Wes, tried to toughen me up and give me an advanced education on what to expect or not to expect in prison. Important things - like where to stab someone, and when to do it.

It was here that my beloved wife made contact with Welcome Home Ministries' Carmen Robbins, who put her in contact with one of the volunteer yard pastors in reception. He came 3 times to my cell only to be told I was not there. His persistence paid off for the Kingdom as he delivered me a NKJV Study Bible, some vital court papers which showed I was not a child molester (something you have to have in prison or you will lose your life), and some copies of the New Testament.

That is when I found that the prison I was in was just "reception" and not where I would be housed. My anxiety level went through the roof when I was finally seen by a "counselor" who told me I was going to Centinela in the high desert where it got 130 degrees. He said that I had no choice. "Counselor" is another nice term for someone who tells you why you are there and where you are going-that's it.

That night I got called out of my cell and told to trans-pack because I would be shipping out to my new prison home in the morning. They said I was going to Norco-it was somewhere in Riverside, CA area.

The next morning we were stripped and put in orange paper jumpsuits and again searched and shackled for the non-stop bus trip. Using the bathroom is a luxury you use when you have one, if not, you wait. When I got to Norco California Rehabilitation Center, I went through a quick intake and was given a bunk in a dorm with 100 guys. I had access to a state pay phone and contacted my frantic wife as soon as I was able to use it. After the complex method of setting up a credit card on my wife's end, I got through. She was relieved to know where I was.

I saw the counselor at CRC who told me this was a Level 2 prison and I had the right to be in a Level 1 if I wanted to buck the system. I figured this was where I should be agreeable and ask to stay at CRC. I was right.

After several days of learning my way around, I started reading my Bible. I was sent some books from my church pastor based on the gospel of grace.

I was able to obtain a small $20 radio and tuned into a contemporary Christian station. They challenged me to listen to them exclusively to see if I would be a more positive person. I figured that this was a good advertising idea and decided to give it a chance. Turns out it was true: The biggest lesson I learned while incarcerated is that what you program, allow yourself to see and hear will be exactly the person you become. So I stopped T.V., the news (the Bad News), and reading library books. I read and studied the Bible, Christian books on grace, and listened to contemporary Christian radio.

I started to read the Bible at Genesis. I also started reading 1 Proverb for each day of the month, and 5 Psalms so that I could finish both books every month. I was surprised that as I read the Psalms and Proverbs and a large portion of the Word each day, I changed into a very positive person in a very short time. I started reading some of the books about God's amazing grace and found out that I was the righteousness of Christ in Him.

21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. NKJV (2 Cor. 5:21).

Now by nature, I have always been a negative person. I always said, "I'd rather think the worst in a situation and be delightfully surprised if something good happened. That way I won't be disappointed."

After being in CRC about 2 months, I had an experience with God that I can only describe as waves of Devine Love overwhelming and overpowering me. I just sat there and cried in His love and forgiveness. I was forever changed by His Grace. I was now on my 2nd time through the Study Bible (including Maps), and I became a Word-worker. When I wasn't at work or school, people came to me and began asking questions about the Word of God and faith in Him.

You see, as you live 24 hours a day with 100 other guys and associate with 4500 in passing, they know everything about you. They know when you get up, when you walk around, where you go--everything. There is no room for anything less than 110% commitment to Jesus. Your speech must be full of grace and truth as well as mercy.

I found that when I spoke to others about God's grace radically, that they would radically change. As I said, I lived in a dorm with 100 other guys. Eight of us were white and seven of the whites were on the other side of the rectangle-shaped dorm. So I was surrounded by blacks and Mexicans. So my faith-sharing started with them. In CRC a black and white inmate never walked anywhere together. I got a new bunkie who was black. I started walking to meals with him and sitting with him and led him to the Lord. He has 5 years left to go, but is with the Lord and a brother in the Faith.

One of the black Christian guys was witnessing to a Muslim group. He asked me to come and talk to them since they had stopped listening to his "preaching" to them. I went and reasoned with them using the Scripture. They said that if I could point out to them where Jesus actually said that he was the Son of God that they would believe. I showed them Mark 14:61-62:

61 But He kept silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him, saying to Him, "Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?"
62 Jesus said, "I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. NKJV

Two of them believed from then on. As I began to see a change in my heart attitude from negative to joyful and praising God, inmates literally flocked around me to ask questions. You see, they saw me daily from early in the morning reading the Word of God, and saw the reflection of the true Joy of the Lord in my countenance. They knew it was the real deal because they had tested me.

I started reading my Bible at work and people asked me to start teaching them the Word. In the couple of months I had in the kitchen I was able to bring a dozen people to the Lord and to see what He had to say about them in the Gospel.

I found that as my ministry grew over that year that I needed books and help from the outside to help those who I was discipling. I continue to give thanks to Welcome Home Ministries for the help they provided my family when I was at the lowest point in my life there in "reception." They persevered in encouraging my wife who could not locate or contact me for over a month. They provided me the tools and contacts I needed to survive as a believer in an atmosphere where there is much brokenness. Naturally having a believing wife was a huge asset. She is amazing!

I've seen hardened criminals break down in tears under the sound of the Good News of the grace of Jesus. As an inmate, if I was not a model of this grace and perseverance in the face of mountains of state obstacles, nothing would have been accomplished during my incarceration. Lord, Your grace has broken down strongholds. You have sent me where no other has been privileged to go with Your Divine credentials. You are a "heart surgeon" repairing gently the broken-hearted and the wounded. You let me "weep with those who weep, and laugh with those who laugh."

Fellow lay ministers and Chaplains to the broken, forgotten, hurting, lonely, and forsaken-never forget these are they who are at the lowest points in their lives. If they don't hear of God's grace and amazing love from you, they won't likely find it in prison.

Unfortunately we are only a few individuals. But we can teach the principles of God's healing, love, and grace by our actions. And those actions have become the hallmarks of our ministry to the broken and forgotten. I pray the Lord of the Harvest will raise up laborers to His Harvest. "Surely the fields are white unto harvest, but the laborers are few." Perhaps the widest opportunity for the Gospel to be received after the teenage years is during a time of incarceration. The inmate knows something is wrong and may at some point in the term be open to the Lord.

As I have stated before, we who fill the cells and dormitories of the state prisons are the forgotten. Certainly without your perseverance and ministry, we will remain forgotten. We are conveniently forgotten by family and by the rest of the world. We are sadly forgotten by our churches- even our own ministries. Most of my fellow inmates said that they were forgotten by their families long ago. It sounds sad, but the truth of the incarcerated is: "Out of sight, out of mind." Be encouraged in your work for the Kingdom and keep reminding our ministers, our families, and our congregations of the forgotten behind the fences of our numerous prisons.

Matt 25:37-40
37 "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?
38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?
39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?
40 And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.' NKJ

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