Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Newport, Arkansas, USA · 2016

United States: Arkansas state prison chaplain sentenced for sexually assaulting inmate under guise of counseling and ministry

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Chaplain, Arkansas Department of Correction, McPherson Women's Unit, founder and leader of in-prison faith-based ministry program

Organization

Arkansas Department of Correction

Spiritual nexus

Dewitt was the prison's chaplain and the founder/leader of its faith-based rehabilitation ministry — the only avenue of spiritual and emotional support offered to women at the facility. He used that ministry program itself to select and isolate victims one-on-one, and the abuse was expressly conducted 'under the guise of counseling and ministry work,' not as an abuse of security/custodial power.

Pastoral or clerical authority
Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2016-08-08 · sentencing

Arkansas state court, Jackson County. guilty plea to 3 counts of third-degree sexual assault; sentenced to 5 years

Documented coercion mechanisms

used his own faith-based counseling program as the point of individual access to victims
framed sexual contact as part of pastoral/spiritual relationship ('under the guise of counseling and ministry work')

Primary record

Sources

Corrections1 (2016) 'Ark. chaplain sentenced to five years in sexual assault case', 8 August 2016.: Kenneth Dewitt, 67, former chaplain at the Arkansas Department of Correction's McPherson Women's Unit in Newport, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of third-degree sexual assault, down from an original 50 counts. Dewitt approached inmates individually while they participated in the faith-based 'Principles and Applications for Life' program he founded in 1998, asked about their feelings for him, and initiated sexual contact on multiple occasions, positioning victims so he could monitor for approaching guards. One victim was his subordinate in the chaplain's office; that relationship was acknowledged when he resigned in September 2014.
KATV (2021) 'Victim of ex-Arkansas prison chaplain files federal suit'.: Carolyn Arnett, the named victim, alleged Dewitt sexually abused her on a weekly basis for nearly four years under the guise of counseling and ministry work at the all-women McPherson Unit, and sued prison administrators for failing to act on knowledge of his conduct.
Prison Legal News (2016) 'The Rape Victims Silenced by Their Prison Cells', 8 November 2016.: Reports on the Dewitt prosecution as part of a wider pattern of chaplain and staff sexual abuse of prisoners silenced by fear of retaliation and disbelief; confirms the guilty plea and five-year sentence at the McPherson Women's Unit.

Related record

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