By Austin Hirsh

Imagine if you knew exactly when, where, and how you would die. Imagine the endless nightmares leading up to the hour of your perfectly planned execution. These circumstances are difficult for most people to even fathom, but they are reality for the numerous convicts living on death row. Some people argue that these criminals deserve to die; their horrific crimes require only the harshest punishment. However, 75-year-old Sister Helen Prejean thinks otherwise. Prejean has spent the last 34 years of her life fighting to save the lives of murderers.
Sister Helen first gained the public’s attention with the 1993 publication of her best selling novel, “Dead Man Walking.” The novel, which many Bellarmine seniors read as part of a summer reading assignment, follows the story of a young Prejean as she unexpectedly finds the humanity within supposed monsters on death row in Louisiana. As Prejean said in a recent interview, her experiences at Angola Prison allowed her to look beyond “the images we have of people” in order to uncover “the real person.”
Since the release of “Dead Man Walking” and the subsequent filming of its blockbuster rendition, Sister Helen has made it her mission to inform the public about America’s flawed justice system. In an interview prior to her Oct. 12 event at the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts in Tacoma, Sister Helen discussed capital punishment with Bellarmine Lion Staff. Among shocking economic and racial factors, Prejean explained that 90 percent of the criminals on death row were abused as children. She even said that, “We are finding out prisons are the biggest providers of mental health in the country.”
In theory, it may sound easy for those unaffected by crimes to forgive criminals. But in reality, the victims directly affected by violent crimes must face an uphill battle against grief, loneliness, and the vengeance. Throughout her mission, one of the greatest problems facing Sister Helen has been reconciling the humanity of a criminal with his or her terrible sin.
As Sister Helen said, “When we come to the human person, we come to imperfection. And there has always been in morality about crimes, the crime but the culpability of the one who has done it. And almost everybody, in fact everyone, has a story.” Besides spending time with criminals, Prejean also ministers to their victims, guiding them away from the grief caused by vengeance and toward the freedom of forgiveness.

Sister Helen Prejean has made it her duty to minister to murderers and victims alike. Throughout her numerous encounters with convicted convicts, Sister Helen greatest victory is introducing murderers and rapists to the power of love. Prejean has said that almost all of the people she has accompanied have directed their last words toward her. “They just want their last words to be words of love and so I am the object of it because I am there with them and have been there for them.” But prehaps the most memorable words Sister Helen has heard before an execution are those of the conviceted murderer Jimy Glass. Before he was killed, Jimmy simple stated, “I’d rather be fishing.”