Jail Chaplain Gives God Helping Hand

VENTURA —  In the eyes of some, they are society’s outcasts, but to Chaplain Bill Glaser, every thief, rapist and murderer that he ministers to is worth saving.

“One woman came up to me and asked, ‘How can you go up there and be around those dirtbags? I don’t understand it.’ ” Glaser said recently. “I told her, ‘Lady, you’re a dirtbag too. We’re all dirtbags.’ ”

Glaser, the Ventura County Jail chaplain for the past 12 years, is available to the more than 1,250 men and 150 women housed in the facility. In addition to counseling 350 or so inmates, he coordinates 415 volunteers from 43 churches who offer religious guidance to people of every faith.

In the time that Glaser, 83, has served as chaplain, he has seen many of the inmates leave the system and reenter it. Others have been sent away for life.

And even men like Spencer Brasure aren’t beyond help, Glaser said.

Day after day, the 28-year-old Brasure sat emotionless in court as his acts of brutality against Anthony Guest Jr. were recounted in horrific detail. He kidnapped his victim at gunpoint. Then he tortured him by force-feeding him glass and stapling wood to his ears, among other things.

“I went to see him,” Glaser said. “It took a lot of control to talk to him because he’s very smooth.”

But during the trial, Brasure took advantage of the Bible services Glaser offers to all inmates. The inmate was also paired with a minister from a local church, who came in each week to counsel him.

Brasure, who now sits on death row, did not miss one Bible lesson.

Glaser says he never knows when the seeds he plants will take root. And he concedes that there is no way to tell whether someone has truly accepted God.

“I can’t get through to them,” he said. “God has to.”

The crimes of most inmates locked up at Ventura County Jail are not as bad as Brasure’s. Most are there for petty crimes--many of them returning time after time because they don’t know how to change.

But Glaser, who describes his denomination only as Protestant, says the way out is not through a jailhouse release--it’s through God.

Inmate Brian McDowell, 41, will get out later this month, after serving time for burglary. Even though McDowell admits that he has a rap sheet that spans 25 years, he still hopes he will change when he gets out. But he also reluctantly admits that the likelihood is slim.

His stealing began years ago when he got hooked on heroin, a habit that he’s kicked four times after being on the verge of death.

“I did whatever could bring the money in,” McDowell said. “Being an addict for several years straight with a $100-a-day habit gets expensive.”

Sometimes he prayed for help.

But he said he knows it will take more than prayer.

“Flesh is weak,” McDowell said. “You can ask God for a lot of things, but if you still have cravings, it doesn’t help.”

Even with prayer, McDowell said he is not sure he’s headed in the right direction.

“Yes, I’ve accepted Jesus, but I don’t get this overwhelming sensation like I see other people get, like he came into my life and that will be it.”

Glaser did not always have a religious calling.

A World War II veteran, he served in Patton’s Third Army and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Even though religion was a part of his Chicago upbringing, Glaser got off track with an addiction to bourbon that he says came between him and God.

Then something changed. Suddenly, he said, he lost his craving and became an evangelist. Then Glaser, who had received a medal while in the military, began devoting his life to helping people in civilian life.

In a recent sermon delivered to 10 prisoners, Glaser warned them about weakness of the flesh by sharing his experience with addiction.

Glaser says that is the wall that McDowell keeps bumping up against.

“Men are macho, they are wanting to stay in control,” Glaser said. “I can’t get through to him. God has to.”

Glaser still receives letters from inmates who thank him for his words.

One of his most frequent writers, he says, is Diana Haun, who is serving a life sentence for stabbing and bludgeoning to death her lover’s wife, Sherri Dally.

Glaser carefully files all his letters away as a testament to the power of redemption.

“I haven’t forgotten you or the talks we had,” John V. says in a letter written a few months ago. “Not for one single day since I’ve gotten out.”

Glaser looks at the letter with a smile. “There’s one I think is gonna make it,” he said.