For religious leaders, the job is often about creating a space for people: helping them find solace after loss, helping them figure out how they want to live. But Raths, who will be featured in a documentary about chaplains later this year, said that’s a very different process in prison. “My impulse, when someone in front of me is grieving deeply, my impulse is to touch, to console, maybe to embrace, to offer tea or phone calls. But in the commerce of the place I am at, I am not to touch, I am not to offer.”

This is one challenge that came up over and over again in our conversation: In ministering to prisoners, it can be very difficult to set boundaries. For example: As Raths was preparing to volunteer in a prison in Massachusetts, she read an article about outreach work written by Quaker women. One of their main pieces of advice? “Be prepared to be sexually aroused. When you walk into a men’s prison, it’s one of very few places, if not the only place, where you feel in complete power. People are drawn to you, and not just in sexual ways.”

Although even talking about such subjects may be uncomfortable, being open about these kinds of challenges is important, Raths said. Talking with people about intimate questions of faith can make it especially easy to slip past the specific, firm boundaries of prison relationships.

While learning how to set these boundaries was a very hard part of her job as a chaplain, Raths said, it was often even harder for volunteers. And there were lots and lots of volunteers, she said: “Prisons are great places to kind of get your numbers up.”

In books and movies and television shows, there’s a certain stereotype about religion in prisons—that people often find God from their cell. There have been a handful of high-profile cases of this in recent memory, like Karla Faye Tucker and Kelly Renee Gissendaner. The stereotype, Raths said, isn't entirely untrue. “Finding your God or goddess isn’t uncommon,” she said. But “one of our concerns was: Are you swapping out this religious experience for some other kind of addictive behaviors or avoidance behaviors? When given this kind of opportunity to build those relationships with folks, those are the kinds of things I would hopefully gently start to pry at.”

Although many prisoners may experience these kinds of religious awakenings—or at least, spiritual strugglings—a lot of others don’t, Raths said: “Prison is a hard place to become really vulnerable.” For people who have been convicted of a crime, and particularly violent crimes, the question of forgiveness is huge, and daunting. “There’s a physical body that experienced the harm that this person caused,” she said. “People who come to custody in prison, while they have been the offender, they almost without fail have also been the victims themselves.” Understanding that often has to come first, Raths said, but “the real, challenging question was: Can I forgive myself?”