Anne-Marie Easley, assistant warden at Angola, thanked the group God Behind Bars for helping inmates “restore and build healthy relationships with their daughters despite their circumstances.” Staying involved with their children’s lives benefits the dads as well as the kids, she said.
After participating in the dance, one inmate shared, “We’re supposed to be the worst of the worst and the hardest to the hardest. And we walk around like that sometimes, even when we don’t do it intentionally, right?”
“To be able to see all of us together with our kids, man,” he said, “the loves of our lives and with no masks. That was cool.”
Leslie Harris, who has missed most of his 17-year-old daughter’s milestones, said, “Seeing her in a dress, crying and running to me just broke me down. It made me think of all the years I missed out on in her life.” Harris has nine years remaining in his sentence for armed robbery.
An event organizer encouraged the inmates to be God-fearing men. “You’re their model, and you’re going to be the one that instills in them the type of guy that they deserve,” she said of the men’s daughters. “With God, it’s all possible. And despite where you are, it can happen.”
Prison Dance Aims To Rebuild Relationships
The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections said God Behind Bars has worked with Angola for a year and has provided other events for inmates. It said dance participants “were screened for appropriateness based on conduct, custody, and that they were the biological father of the daughter(s).”
The department said, “This event was a time for the fathers, many who had not seen their daughters in years, to bond and start the process of building a long-term healthy relationship with their daughters.”
When someone on social media questioned why “tax dollars” were being spent on the dance, others noted that the event relied on volunteers and cost taxpayers nothing. Author Dan Darling replied, “Zero dollars spent. Men being rehabilitated thru Christianity. Reunited with their families. Better for society. Suggested reading: anything by Chuck Colson.”
RELATED: Daniel Darling: For Christians, Kindness Is Not a Tactic—It’s a Command
Colson, the late founder of Prison Fellowship, is considered the father of modern-day prison ministry.
Online, response to the father-daughter dance at Angola was mostly positive. People applauded the effort to acknowledge prisoners’ humanity and to build or rebuild family relationships. “[Even] if my tax dollars were being used for this activity, I’d be more than happy to pay,” someone wrote on X.
