New Roster System at LBJ

It looks like changes are brewing at LBJ. If you’ve had a service recently, you saw the notice from Chaplain Art Herrera in the forms folder in the chapel. The notice says that they are moving to a roster system for our services. This means that, rather than the COs calling a pod or dorm, the men/boys in jail must sign up for our services. Then, when we come, they will bring in the roster of guys that signed up.

This change isn’t just happening at LBJ. It’s already occurring at the Towers Jail, and most likely is in the process of being implemented in all the county jails. They already do it this way in the Arizona prison system.

We don’t yet have any information about when this change will start. We have heard about it for several weeks, but now the Chaplain’s notice makes us think it is coming closer to being a reality. This post is to keep you all informed, and to try to get ahead of the changes.

On the one hand, we can understand (or at least speculate) why they are making this change. On the other hand, this new system could cause problems for us. Here are some of the potential problems:

• We always welcome everybody, but the roster will be for Catholic Services.
• There’s a lot of turnover at the jail, and new men coming in might not sign up. Also, we don’t always know when guys leave the jail, so we may not know if the roster is up-to-date.
• Many of our time slots specify multiple pods. I don’t know how they will handle that. Ideally, they would have multiple rosters in a time slot, one for each pod, and then we would select the roster. However, they might allow just one roster per time slot.
• There are guys who would respond to a call for services, but who would not sign up on the roster. Since there will no longer be a call, then these men won’t be able to attend. A lot of times the Spirit moves a man to come, and then he is inspired by the service. This won’t happen anymore.

All of these things add up to the possibility of having fewer men/boys attend our services.

We may not like these changes, but what can we do about it? We are guests in the jail, and we have to live by their rules. But, we can adapt, and come up with strategies to make the best of the situation. Here are some actions we can take:

• In the notice from the Chaplain, he asked us for information about our service, and asked us to write it down and put it in his mailbox. Please do that! This will help insure that we get rosters for each of our services. If there are multiple pods you can serve, then list them all.
• Tell all the guys in your services that this change may be coming, and they should sign up for your service(s). Make sure they know that all are welcome, not just Catholics. Also, you could request that they ask other men in their pod to sign up.
• If we find that the number of guys at our services are reduced after this goes into effect, then we can ask the guys that do come to encourage other guys in the pod to sign up for our service(s). For those that serve in the dormitories, you might ask a supportive CO if you can go into the dorm and ask guys if they want to sign up. We can’t be shy!

Let us know if you have more ideas.

Thanks for all you do, and we pray that, in spite of the changes (if they come), God will continue to bless our service to the men and boys in jail.