Prisons seek chaplains after state budget cuts

In the weeks since North Carolina's legislature laid off most of its
prison chaplains, Betty Brown, director of prison chaplaincy services,
has been crisscrossing the state searching for volunteers who can attend
to the religious needs of Native American, Wiccan and Rastafarian
prisoners.

State legislators had assumed that volunteer ministries
would jump in and help prisoners meet the ritual and devotional needs
of their faiths. But so far that
hasn't happened.

"It's been
tough locating volunteers for those faith groups," said Brown, whose
department lost 26 full-time prison chaplains as part of an effort to
close a $2.6 billion state budget gap.