Within These Walls
Subtitle: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: May 24, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780312287177
Subjects: Current Affairs; Religious; Penology; Clergy; Texas; Capital Punishment; Pastoral Care And Counseling; Political; Biography / Autobiography; Politics/International Relations; Death row; Criminals & Outlaws; Social Science / Penology; Biography; Pickett, Carroll; American; Prison chaplains; Church work with prisoners
First sentence: It began as one of those glorious Texas days when the summer sun's warmth feels like a soothing balm and the blooming lantana and honeysuckle give a rich and intoxicating fragrance to the air.
Description: "Within These Walls is the memoir of Rev. Carroll Pickett, who spent fifteen years as the death house chaplain at "The Walls," the Huntsville unit of the Texas prison system. In that capacity Reverend Pickett ministered to ninety-five men before they were put to death by lethal injection. They came with sinister nicknames like "The Candy Man" and "The Good Samaritan Killer," some contrite, some angry - a few who might have even been innocent. All of them found in Reverend Pickett their last chance for an unbiased confessor who would look at them only as fellow humans, not simply as the convicted criminals the rest of society had already dismissed them as. This firsthand experience gave Reverend Pickett the unique insight needed to write an impassioned statement on the realities of capital punishment in America. The result is a thought-provoking and compelling book that takes the reader inside the criminal mind, inside the execution chamber, and inside the heart of a remarkable man who shares his thoughts and observations not only about capital punishment, but about the dark world of prison society."--Jacket.