This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Caring for Anxious Minds – A Caregiver’s Experience as a Jail Chaplain with Ram Appalaraju. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Caring for Anxious Minds – A Caregiver’s Experience as a Jail Chaplain with Ram Appalaraju

The following talk was given by Ram Appalaraju at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on October 14, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

Good morning, everybody. Lovely to see everyone. I am so excited for this new season of the Buddhist Chaplaincy Speaker Series. It's amazing to think it's the third year now that we've been hosting this speaker series. We started it three years ago. For those of you maybe not familiar with the Sati Center and the Buddhist chaplaincy programs that we offer, the way that this speaker series started was that often for the Buddhist chaplaincy training that we facilitate at the Sati Center, we'd invite guest speakers to come and speak to the students. These talks were so rich and so amazing and informative and interesting that we had this idea of, you know, everyone should be able to hear them, not just the students. Wouldn't it be wonderful if these talks were really available to everybody?

And so that was the genesis of this series. If you're just coming in for the first time, I strongly encourage you to locate the Buddhist Chaplaincy Speaker Series page on the Sati website and look at the archive because there's really been some absolutely cracking events in the last couple of years. And what a way to begin our third season today with Ram Appalaraju, who is a former student from the Sati Center's Buddhist Chaplaincy Training.

I'll just tell you a little bit about Ram. Ram began serving as a chaplain at CIC Ministries in Santa Clara County jails. In this role as a staff chaplain, he serves as an interfaith chaplain as well as a mindfulness meditation instructor for inmates. Ram is also an eco-chaplain and a faculty member at the Sati Center's Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy program, which is another one of our chaplaincy programs. Ram is a student of Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center, and he is also currently in the Dharma Leaders Training program. Ram is a Dharma teacher at the San Jose Insight Meditation Center, and he serves as a volunteer chaplain for Red Cross Disaster Care Spiritual Services.

That's not enough, though, because Ram also leads a nonprofit called Insight World Aid, an organization addressing hunger issues and offering compassion and grief circles to caregivers at various organizations. Ram, I'm amazed and privileged that you have found time to come and speak to us today about one aspect of the many things that you do, which is prison chaplaincy.

Ram will speak for a little while, there'll be a time for questions, and we're going to end at 10:00 Pacific time. Then any students of the Buddhist Chaplaincy Training are invited to just stay on for an extra half an hour for more in-depth questions about chaplaincy and service work with Ram. Okay, so that's how we'll do it today. So Ram, I pass it over to you. Good morning.

Caring for Anxious Minds – A Caregiver’s Experience as a Jail Chaplain (link)

Beautiful. Good morning and beautiful to see all of you. It's such a wonderful feeling to be with you all. I'm eternally grateful to Sati Center for opening the door to chaplaincy. To say it pivoted my life is an understatement. This was during the thick of the pandemic. I worked for a long time as a techie in the tech industry, trying to chug along the Buddhist path. And then it suddenly occurred to me, it just can't be all about me and my meditation and my mental calmness. What do I do with it now? I was almost 60 at that time, and in my 61st year, I got into this Buddhist chaplaincy training.

I am just in awe of bringing Buddhist teachings into the caregiving side and all the possibilities the Sati Center program offered. When I was taking the course, I was also lucky to have Vanessa as one of the instructors, along with Jennifer, Gil, and of course, Paul. The light bulbs kept going on. I felt like there was something in me that's never been tapped into, and one by one, it was triggered. What happened was when I started the Sati Center program, it required that I do some amount of volunteer service. So I went to the local senior citizen home, I had access to one particular hospital, and then I had a contact who connected me with the ministry that supports the Santa Clara jail.

When I went there, there was a combination of intimidation, totally unknown. However, there's something that just gelled for me. So, within a couple of weeks, I was volunteering 15 to 20 hours a week. I just went all in. I volunteered for a little over a year, and then they made me an offer as a staff chaplain to come in and be a professional chaplain. The word gratitude doesn't even come close. Wow, this is so much to learn, yet I have an opportunity to go deeper into this field. So I've been a professional chaplain in this setting for close to three years. A lot of my experience I'm going to talk about is in the context of what I learned, what we offer, and what chaplaincy essentially means in the jail and prison settings.

To start with, before I go into jail chaplaincy itself, I want to give a little bit more about where I'm coming from. Today, I spend anywhere between 20 to 30 hours on jail chaplaincy. I'll explain what all the roles that means, which translates to approximately seeing about 25-plus people every week on a one-on-one basis and teaching two or three meditation or Buddhist classes. I'm also privileged with working with a whole bunch of volunteers, some of them graduated from the Sati Center program itself and are continuing to volunteer in the jail where I work. Part of my role is to work closely with them, share collective learnings, and learn from their experience. So this is a path of continuous growth.

The workplace where I work is the Santa Clara County Jail system. Santa Clara is one of the largest counties in California, and they have two jails, one in Milpitas and the other one in downtown San Jose. Between the two, there are approximately 3,200 to 3,500 inmates, men and women put together. The county has contracted with the ministry where I work, called CIC Ministries. It is a contract, which means we are an independent nonprofit. I'm not an employee of the county, but I'm an employee of a nonprofit that serves the county. I'll tell you why that becomes important in a few seconds.

First, I want to clarify the difference between jail and prison. Jail is a place where inmates are held until they are tried and sentenced. When they are sentenced, they are moved to prison. That's the system in the US. Think of this as the first phase of incarceration. Having said that, on an average, an inmate is in the jail anywhere between two to four years, if not longer. I've seen people going through the trial for as long as nine years. It's not uncommon in our legal systems for things to be very, very slow, and these inmates go through a tremendous amount of anxiety during this phase.

Like in most settings, I work with many hospital chaplains through my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) program. I understand the stories from hospitals. They use the term "integrated care team." In the jail, it's a bit different. In essence, you are caring for a lot of people. On the people front, there are deputies, my own nonprofit organization, lots and lots of volunteers, and program officers who are doing rehabilitation and other classes. The notion of caring includes all of these people. Many times, as I'm walking into the jail, the deputy, the uniformed person who is usually very tough and driven by rules and regulations, when no one's around, will ask me, "Chaplain, can you say a prayer for me? For my sister-in-law, my brother, my mother, my father." So there's a softer side in all of them, and I have been able to connect with and support them.

The word "chaplain" has such a gravitas with it in different settings, particularly in the prison. There was a time I was walking through the metal detector. The guy behind me also walked with me, and he looked at me and asked, "Are you an attorney?" I said, "No, I'm not an attorney." And I asked him, "Are you an attorney?" He said, "Yes, indeed." And then he said, "Let me guess. You're a doctor." I said, "No, I'm not a doctor. I'm a chaplain." And immediately, "Ah, chaplain. I'm glad I met you. You see, I'm an alcoholic." Right off the bat, the word chaplain allows him to earn that trust. He opens up with anything. We are just walking, and this guy brings this up. It just dawned on me, the word chaplain commands a certain sensation, a certain trust, a certain confidence, a certain gravitas, and I need to be sensitive to that because that is what I'm carrying in that role.

The last area of care I've fairly frequently done is caring for families in the lobby who are waiting to get in. Quite often, we are asked to wait in the lobby for whatever reason—jail shutdown, shortage of staff, or something like that. I find a conversation with the people waiting in the lobby, and many of them share their stories about how much they miss their loved one, how frequently or infrequently they get a chance to see them. Just giving my ear and heart to open up and listen to them is deeply meaningful and fulfilling. So, although we call ourselves jail or prison chaplains, the ecosystem where we bring our caring heart and presence tends to be quite broad.

When we are performing our jobs in the jail setting, there are a few things I want to touch on. One is obviously one-on-one spiritual counseling. We get tons of inmate requests for the service of a chaplain through an online form. Every inmate gets a tablet. Sometimes it could be as simple as, "I need to meet with the chaplain for a prayer," or sometimes, "I want to meet with the chaplain to go into something deeper." I've also taken confessions, and some people have asked how to build forgiveness and how to ask for forgiveness. You get into different sorts of requests.

The other type of requests are for materials: "Can you get me a spiritual book? Can you get me a prayer mat?" If you're a Muslim, "Can you get me a kufi or something related to prayer times?" They want Bibles and study guides. In addition, there's a lot of secular material they ask for: "Can you get me National Geographic? Can you get me Sports Illustrated? Can you get me a book on biology?" If I add this all up, every one of us—we are about six or seven chaplains in our ministry—we're processing a couple of hundred to 250 forms each month. That adds up to over a thousand forms easily on a per-month basis. This is all part of our role, what we are contracted to do. If you hear in the chaplaincy class, "meet them where they are," this is it. They bring up the need, whatever that may be, and we support them wherever they are.

We also have lots of classes: Bible studies, Quran study classes, and so on. Over my four years or so, we built two types of classes. One is mindfulness meditation classes, very secularized because the jail is very strict about proselytizing. We are very cautious about not enforcing Buddhism as a religion. I picked up a lot from the works of Jon Kabat-Zinn, how he brought the Buddhist path into a secular way through mindfulness-based stress reduction. But there are some inmates who really want to get into Buddhism, understand it, learn about it, and become practitioners. So we offer classes for them. These classes tend to be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, and the purpose is to give them work in a small group and learn meditation tools. As of last month, when I look at the classes and my own one-on-one engagements, there are over 400 meditators in the Santa Clara County jail right now. It warms my heart to see how much effort they are making given the circumstances they are in. It's a beautiful sight to see when they commit themselves and go through this process.

The jail also has addiction classes, particularly both AA and NA classes. Selectively, chaplains do get involved in that. As I learned more about this field, I saw that addiction contributes a lot to incarceration. Part of our role is to support them. I learned there is a step in the 12-step process about prayer and meditation, I think it's step number 11. So I go support many of these people when they're on step 11. How do you introduce spirituality or a meditation or prayer practice into that? For many people, the NA/AA program is a gateway into religion or spirituality. Until then, they didn't have any. So it becomes a point of continuity for us to support them. Whenever I go to those classes, the first thing I tell them is, "None of you have a drinking problem, you have a thinking problem." It's kind of reframing where that comes from. What is the story that the mind is telling you that we are falling for? What is that narrative? What is that construction process? This fits right into teaching them the mindfulness of body, feelings, and thoughts. They gradually fall into learning that process, and many of them really appreciate and take the instructions very seriously.

Let me go into a little bit about the inmates themselves, who we are caring for and what it means to be understanding their suffering. The largest single word around suffering in jail is anxiety, hence the title for this talk. The definition of anxiety I've come up with is: a state of mind wanting an outcome within a specified time with minimal or no control. The inmates themselves cut across different demographics, age groups, religions, immigration statuses, and identities. One thing I learned is to really understand their identity vis-à-vis my identity, because nothing is totally objective. We are dealing in the relative spheres here. In my list of identities, I look at age, language, gender preferences, socioeconomic factors, family structures, immigration status, and education level.

The reason this becomes important is if I look at the overall jail structure, the people who are incarcerated really come down to three groups: one, those who are not offered bail (no-bail arrest); two, people who can't afford bail; and three, people who can't afford an attorney. So, there are some social justice thoughts in the back of my head. Every so often they creep up, and I'm trying to put them down, not get into social activism mode. But it's difficult not to think about the unfairness of the system. That's the reality of the identity of many of these people.

The second aspect why this identity and their backgrounds become important is so that I can be aware of my own conditionality, my beliefs, my tendencies, my experiences, so that I don't become subconsciously self-referential in my caregiving process. The more I can really understand each one of them as they are, then I can really create a "don't know" mind and be able to be present for them in a spiritual context. We may want to ultimately think the only thing in common is humanity and try to engage with them at that level. It's something I had to grow into; it took me quite a bit of time getting past the comparing mind to be able to meet them totally where they are.

What this also means is, as I'm learning to build a relationship, the notion of establishing trust becomes more and more important. I noticed in the first two or three meetings, they won't say a word. They are just interested in a prayer and speak very little. In that process, they are sizing me up, trying to understand who this guy is, what he can do for me. It takes some time. Once the trust is established—and I call that a sacred connection—the possibilities become endless. The number of requests increases, the types of conversations. They are open to talk about spirituality, what they mean by God, why they pray, and also really open up about their inner stories in a much more cohesive way. Once the trust is established, the chaplain becomes truly a peer or a spiritual friend, a kalyana mitta¹ if you want to call it that. That's when you hear the deeper aspect of what's underneath that anxiety.

I wrote down a few words that came from many conversations over the last few days: regret, remorse, repentant, helplessness, isolation, loneliness, missing family, separation, loss of livelihood, and health issues. All these enter the topics of conversation. There's a class of people who are unfortunately very frustrated and angry at themselves. Those are the ones who keep getting released and, a few months or under a year later, they get arrested and are back in jail. The recidivism problem is very rampant. When I meet with them, it's really frustration and self-hatred. Right below that is how much they get into addiction all over again. There's a trigger that takes them into the old ways.

If I net it out, behaviorally, almost 90% of the inmates are there because of anger issues, lust issues, or addiction issues, and add to that the trauma that they have endured sometime in their life. The inmates themselves are grouped in different ways within the jail. Many of them are in a shared dorm, which means an open space with about 60 to 80 people. Yet, they're very guarded and cautious and experience a huge amount of loneliness. Then there's a smaller group, maybe 25-30% of them, who are in smaller cells, no more than two per cell, sometimes one. They have an even higher degree of isolation and don't have regular human contact. Each one of them brings a different state of mind, conditioned by their real-time environment.

This is where anxiety manifests in so many different ways. For example, I see guys who are anxious and isolated, and they also have addiction issues. Over the course of my conversation with them, you notice they have a deep sense of low self-esteem. They feel that they are victims themselves, which means their self-worth and their agency are heavily affected. Part of our role is to reframe some of this in a spiritual context, to make them feel that they have self-worth, that they can endure the process, that there is hope. Hope is a very interesting conversation you end up having. In many faiths, particularly Christianity, hope is central. Some people are more cautious about the word hope. People on the Buddhist path ask me questions about right intention and how it contrasts with hope. If Buddhism is all about the present moment, why would I worry about something in the future? We get into some interesting discussions.

The last comment I want to make about the inmates is there is a mental health group that cares for them. While I say mental health, it's largely the pharmaceutical side, not the therapy side. Very rarely are inmates seen on a consistent basis for their mental health condition. Two weeks ago, I was seeing an inmate and he was telling me he was on 10 psych meds—five in the morning, five in the afternoon—with no therapy to go along with it. There is a context for me. What does it mean for this guy to be overly drugged out? How do I connect with him? As a chaplain, the more aware I am about all of this, the more I can tailor my approach to support them.

The hardest one I had was caring for people in the first few days of arrest, especially the first two to three days. This is pretty intense, especially if they are first-time incarcerated people. The training I've gone through in psychological first aid, from my work with the Red Cross in disaster care, becomes very handy. You deal with shock, disbelief, huge loss. Some of that training is useful when I'm meeting with people who just got into jail in the first 24, 48, 72 hours. Those tend to be pretty intense. They're crying a lot, completely blaming someone else, or they just don't like the system. They don't feel safe. "I'm going to get killed here." They just go off in any way the mind takes them. Every time an inmate is arrested, we get an email as to who is coming in and what their spiritual needs are. Our ministry immediately responds and connects with the person within hours of them getting incarcerated.

The second prevalent situation is inmates bringing their issues of anxiety and stress related to their own families. In my time, I've seen over two to three dozen people who got divorced while they were in jail. They go through the entire process of, "I'm not able to connect with my kids anymore. My ex took the kids away." That's another huge factor they carry with them, ruminating about it. Those are very painful.

The third type is inmates who have challenges with their attorneys. Many of them are relying on public defenders, and an average public defender has dozens of cases. Over a two-year period, most inmates I've talked to would have cycled through half a dozen or more public defenders. That's very stressful for them. "I got to start with this guy all over again."

The next issue is in-dorm issues: chemistry issues, racial issues, gang issues, fights, loneliness, you name it. They want a reason to get out for a few minutes, talk to the chaplain, and just get themselves at ease. The requests coming in cut across all of these types and more. Bottom line, they are in a pressure cooker with a huge amount of trust issues and very little self-confidence because everything they seem to try doesn't seem to work.

How about that for a setup? It's not a good story. And this is where the training from Sati Center comes in pretty useful. At the end of the day, the way I see chaplaincy is not a job or a profession or a role. It's simply a continuation of the Buddhist path. That's my personal view. You can bring the entire Eightfold Path into the context of chaplaincy. That's my approach to caregiving.

I put a lot into being able to understand what it means to bring my presence. Who am I at that moment? Am I carrying my baggage, or do I really empty it and show up so that it is the inmate's meeting, and I'm there to spiritually support them, earn their trust, and be with them through the process? There is a notion of presence leading into connection. Both presence and connection are very, very contextual. It depends on context, context, context. And then there is process, process, process. It's not about having an idea where I want to steer them, but we are really serving, not fixing or helping. That distinction grows in you very soon. They are not just words, but what is the mindset of a person serving versus the default mode of fixing or helping?

One of the highlights I remember from my Sati Center program is the notion of sitting across versus sitting by the side. Unfortunately, in the jail, when we meet in a meeting room, those rooms are tiny, maybe 5ft by 5ft, and there's an iron table. We are sitting across the table. I don't like that setup, but that's all I got. There is a power dynamic that sitting across causes. Sometimes, they chain the inmate to the floor, so their movement is even more restricted. I'm holding all of this in my head, but I need to put that aside, accept the situation as is, and still be able to connect, look into their eyes, and listen.

In that process, the conversation shapes into finding God. What is God's role in this? They ask from, "Why is God doing this to me?" all the way down to, "God has put me in here for a reason. I have become more spiritual in the last few months than ever before." You get into all kinds of interesting conversations. We may not use the word God in our everyday Buddhist practice, but it's a big part of caring in the jail setting. It comes up every time. They ask me, "Who is your God and what are you invoking?" I generally answer, "Nature is my God." I'm an eco-chaplain as well, and I have a deep sense of reverence for nature. They feel comfort in that. Sometimes I do invoke the gender as "he" because that's what they want, what they're used to. You're connecting in a way that's meaningful and resonates with them. That prayer immediately shows some self-confidence and ticks into their areas of self-worth. That is pretty powerful.

I wrote a verbatim for my current CPE unit about an inmate I've been caring for over four years. I've seen him over 65 times. He didn't want to take a plea deal for 15 to 20 years. He said, "No, I'm innocent. I'm going to fight this." He went to trial, lost, and got life without parole. Immediately, he put in a request: "Chaplain Ram, I want to see you before I'm moved off to prison." They bring him in a red jumpsuit with chains. Even that itself is viscerally so wrong with the system. This guy is usually a very upbeat, smart guy. He's got an architecture degree from UCSD. We talked about everything from science fiction to meditation. We had so much history.

In the middle of the conversation, he brought up, "Chaplain, remember you and I were reading Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning? What was that about resilience? That's what I need to find." He himself found it. "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take a lot of courses. I want to get myself a degree in neuroscience." I was ready to cry. I came back to the car and cried. I didn't cry in front of the guy, but just going through that process with these guys, exploring all possibilities, and letting them determine their own inner strengths. At the beginning of the meeting, he was very sober, he cried. Towards the end, he was upbeat, chatting non-stop. "I think I'm more worried about my mom. I think I can give her confidence. I'm going to endure this. I'll figure out a way to live a good life." And that's where the meeting ended.

Some of the things that really helped in the reframing process is asking open-ended questions like, "Who did you ever feel safe with?" or "Who would ever feel safe with you?" You'll be shocked to see, there are studies done on this. A vast majority of people, especially if you frame the question in the first 10 years of their life, say mom or dad. I'm finding out over a third to 50% of the people can't answer that question. They never felt safe with anyone. As you find out about all of this, it becomes an opportunity to open up and bring the teachings of the Brahma Viharas², particularly opening your heart and bringing kindness and compassion to the forefront, and constructing your sentences with utmost tenderness.

In terms of what I bring from Buddhist teaching, I want to start with generosity first, which is one of the paramis³. Generosity in this context is about attention, listening, and being open-hearted. I also want to include a non-judgmental mindset, not bringing our own conditionality into the conversation. Empathy is largely the portal or the gateway. The way we attend, listen, respond, and connect is the gateway. I often believe that empathy is born out of compassion. That compassion-empathy link certainly creates a space where our heart is. I'm no longer cerebral at that point; it's purely heart-centric presence.

The third area is self-care. This is a big part of caregiving. You can practice self-care after you care, but you can also bring it during the care. The more relaxed and present I am, the more self-aware I am, I notice I need less self-care later. I'm finding meaning and purpose in the process of caregiving. As I walk from the car to the inmates, I have a little checklist going in my head around generosity, empathy, compassion, and self-care. And of course, there is no substitute for wisdom—right view and right intention. Metaphorically, I have this thing I call, "It's like watching a play." If you are acting, you are caught up in it. If you're sitting in the first row, you're watching the play and chances are you are getting caught up in it. I want to propose a third alternative, which is being the light that shines on the play. The light that shines on the play with compassion is the chaplain. We are not getting caught up in the act itself, but we are totally aware and present of everything that is going on. That compassion of shining light allows us to take the next step.

I wanted to share a text message I received from an inmate I cared for over two years. He's now serving in prison. His wife, whose wedding I co-officiated while they were in jail, sent this text. The text reads:

"Dear Ram, I write in hopes that you're doing well and you continue doing the amazing work you do of teaching meditation and a constructive, safe environment for inmates. A great man once told me, 'Being on present time and doing something is more often of more value than clinging on to hope.' I'm beginning to understand it more and more. Thank you so much for introducing me to guided meditation, awareness of self, and not to trust my thoughts all the time. I have the Eightfold Path written out and placed above my bed where I see it every morning and every night. I appreciate your help on the never-ending path of enlightenment. I'm now enrolled in neuroscience courses and hope to get a degree. May you experience joy that is free from suffering. Mr. Ram, Namaste."

You never know what the outcome is, but it just warms my heart to see how far this guy has put in an effort, how far he has come. I want to summarize by saying that this is a very meaningful and purpose-driven role. Every day is a combination of being open to all feelings. I've come to the car and cried. I've cried with the inmates. For a while, and I still do it once in a while, I don't come home straight. I go to one of the county parks, park my car, and I have a bag of birdseed. I do some birding, scatter some seeds, and watch the birds. It certainly helps me to ground myself before I come back to my wife and play the husband role. But I'm happy to be part of this journey. I'll take your questions now. Thank you.

Q&A

Question: There's a very quick question in the chat which says, "How can I give Dhamma books for prisoners? Is there a way to do that?"

Ram: Yes, we accept book donations. Please contact me; I'll put my email here. We can figure out a way. In fact, the Buddhist publishers are very generous—Wisdom Publications and quite a few of them. I asked them, "Hey guys, I'm teaching this course," and every one of them has given me boxes and boxes of books for free. It's amazing how much generosity there is with the publishing community as well.

Question: Thank you for this wonderful presentation. I was touched by all your sharing. I am doing my CPE residency right now, about six weeks in, and I work at a mental health hospital. Something you shared resonated with me about that light. That was a really good analogy for me about not getting caught up in the play but being that shining light. As I'm working through a verbatim, I can see where I got caught up. I was trying to be the light, but I got a little swept up with the information and the content. What can you say for me as I continue to navigate this and trying to be that light without getting caught up?

Ram: Beautiful. It's a great question, and the simple answer is self-awareness. Be present with all the self-awareness you can. There are areas that CPE can help you with as well, particularly going deeper into behavioral science. I spend a lot of time on counter-transference, particularly, and you see how it can blindside us. We have to really know everything about ourselves. A lot of this is about self-knowledge. We are finding out about ourselves in a lot more detail. Why are our tendencies the way they are? Is there something about our past, our upbringing, our experience that shows up when least expected in a caregiving situation? I call it sometimes hijacking the moment away from the inmate, making it about myself. I've got to be right. How do we really catch that before it becomes getting caught up in it? There's a book written for psychologists which I learned a lot about, it's called Help for the Helper. I think the author's name is Babette Rothschild. It talks a lot about counter-transference and how, in a caregiving scenario, we can avoid bringing ourselves into it. Hope that's helpful.

Question: What mistakes have you made and learned from?

Ram: Many. That can be a separate talk by itself. One of the biggest mistakes I made a while ago was an inmate came and said, "I really have no money in my commissary. I can't make a phone call. Please can you get this message to my wife? Can you call her and give this message to her?" My heart went out to him. I was immediately empathetic. Soon I realized there are policies in the jail and rules I need to understand a little bit more. I shared this with my ministry, and one of my colleagues said, "Don't do it. Work with me." We went to the captain's office and we checked on this guy. He indeed had a restraining order against his wife. So he was using me, manipulating me to go around that restraining order. So there is a room for the heart, and there is a room for the cerebral side. I had to restructure myself. I won't call it cynicism, but a healthy dose of skepticism is needed.

One of the most challenging parts is death notification to the inmates. We have about 3,500 people within the jails, and if you think of their families, you're looking at a network of 35,000 people. We have a death notification one or two times a week. It's painful. None of them get a chance to go to the memorial or funeral. We can support them through a Zoom session where I'm sitting next to the guy grieving, but even there, we get played sometimes. Therefore, we need to get validation from the coroner's office or somebody to validate that the death indeed did happen.

Question: Could you just briefly enlighten us why a death would be reported that didn't happen?

Ram: They would use this as an opportunity to again break a restraining order of somebody that they want to talk to. That's often the reason. They have an outside world, and they want to keep contact with it, and they will do anything it takes to keep that connection going.