Rift Between Jail Chaplains Leads to Threat From Sheriff’s Department

The Sheriff’s Department has threatened to replace a longtime chaplain at the downtown County Jail after he protested the department’s decision to appoint another minister to coordinate religious activities at the county’s jails.

The Rev. David DeHaas, an ordained Baptist minister affiliated with the Christian Jail Workers of Los Angeles, began work as chaplain coordinator last month. Since then, he has been at odds with the Rev. Ted Horner, chaplain at the County Jail downtown and president of San Diego County Jail Ministries, who says the move to appoint DeHaas is an attempt by the department to control what ministers say to the inmates.

DeHaas was a member of Horner’s group before deciding to seek the position of chaplain coordinator. His $24,000 annual salary is paid by Christian Jail Workers of Los Angeles.

Horner and his group had refused to report their activities directly to the Sheriff’s Department, leading to the decision by the department to choose DeHaas as the chaplain coordinator. San Diego County Jail Ministries has served as interim coordinator of chaplains for the last year. Disgruntled members of the local jail ministries group have said privately that DeHaas was installed by the Sheriff’s Department as a vehicle for controlling the inmates.

“The department simply has decided that it doesn’t want anybody operating in the jails whom it can’t directly control,” said one minister. “They want chaplains who will be part of a public relations system for the sheriff.”

This week, Horner received a letter from the Sheriff’s Department informing him that he would be replaced as chaplain at the downtown jail if he could not work with DeHaas. “They are insisting that I be accountable to him (DeHaas), or I will be replaced,” Horner said Friday.

“Frankly, I’m reluctant to do that. He secretly proposed and negotiated his deal with the Sheriff’s Department, and that leads me to question just how trustworthy he is. And I’m concerned about the Sheriff’s Department exerting such control over my interaction with the inmates.”

Sheriff’s Cmdr. Charles Wigginton, who signed the letter, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Horner said he and other ministers in his group who have been preaching in the jails “are not just sitting back and accepting this situation. We’re looking for a plan of attack that could be effective in reversing it.”

“Unfortunately, there aren’t many avenues open to us,” Horner said. “The sheriff is not answerable to the county except at budget time, and this really isn’t a budget item, and, unfortunately, I don’t think the public really cares what kind of religious activities are made available to jail inmates.”

DeHaas, who served for seven years as a chaplain at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego and for the last three years has been a chaplain at the County Jail in Chula Vista, said Friday that he would “fight for the right of any clergyman in town who wants to enter the jail and talk to an inmate. The law requires that I do that, and to do anything else would be a form of discrimination.”

“I want to put to rest this fear that people will be shut out,” he said. “But I understand the need for the Sheriff’s Department to exert control over my situation. I have no problem with reporting directly to them. That’s my job.”

DeHaas dismissed the concerns of Horner and other jail chaplains, saying they would “be welcome to continue to do the things they have traditionally done in the jails. I see no reason why they should be upset with my appointment.”

When DeHaas was appointed chaplain coordinator, members of San Diego County Jail Ministries said he and Christian Jail Workers of Los Angeles were too conservative to effectively serve the inmate population, and worried that he would attempt to convert inmates to the Baptist faith.

“He will present religion to make the inmates feel guilt,” Horner, a Lutheran, said. “That’s the best way he can be used to control the inmates.”

“I’ve seen a good number of inmates undergo a life-changing experience in jail,” DeHaas said. “When a man is locked up, he goes into shock, and if he can see his trauma in the context of God trying to get their attention--if they see the Lord’s hand in their incarceration--then they will respond positively to what I have to tell them.”