Inmates Comfort Peers in Prison Hospice Programs

F ellow inmates comfort those who are dying in jail. At the Coxsackie Correctional Facility various inmates volunteer to sit with other prisoners who are in the last six months of their life. About 75 prisons have started hospice programs, half of them using inmate volunteers, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
Some feel that this is a bad program because some dying inmates will give their medications to the volunteers, who will then go and sell or use it. Others feel that this is a good program because of the effect it has on the prisoners. One positive thing that comes out of this is that the inmates feel more comfortable talking with the inmates, because they feel that they will not judge them. Other positive things are that it changes the way they think and feel about certain stuff. Some of the inmates do not regret what they did, after joining and seeing someone the bonded with, grew close to, die, they realize the need to change. They join because they feel the need to redeem themselves.
Some inmates realize the change after their ‘patient’ died, such as John Henson. He stated that after watching him die all he could say about himself was “Wow, who the hell are you? Who were you to do this to somebody else?” Another example is of this change is Benny Lee. He did not care about life and death but after this experience his views are changing.