The Prison Where Inmates Help Each Other Die With Dignity

More Americans are dying behind bars than ever before. At one correctional facility, volunteer death-doulas offer care and comfort to their fellow prisoners.

Illustration by Jeremy Leung

It’s six p.m. on a summer Wednesday, and Billy Canady Jr., 47, is beginning his shift as a hospice volunteer. His patient, Carl Stevens, is dying of cancer. A mermaid looks down on the bed where Stevens is sleeping, part of an ocean-themed mural that sports his sentimental touch: photos of Stevens’ children and grandchildren by the bed. Canady taps the elderly man lightly on his shoulder to let him know he’s there.

“He just looked up, and it’s like you get this sense that he knows he's safe,” says Canady, who is fourteen years into an eighteen-year sentence. It’s looks like this that make his volunteer work worth it, he says.

Canady has been looking after Stevens (whose name has been changed here because he did not agree to be interviewed for this piece) for a little over two weeks. At this point, caring for him means sitting by the bed to keep him company because Stevens is still largely self-sufficient. They have a few things in common: both love German she…