By MARK MILLER
“You’re from Bluffton?” John Sproles asked. “I know Bluffton.”
The Henry County sheriff of just two years has been in Bluffton many times. The company began by his father and of which he has become a key part of — Sproles Corporation — builds churches. Only churches. Their work includes Bluffton Nazarene, Hope Missionary and the Bluffton Church of Christ.
He made his second visit with Bluffton-based ministry Christmas Behind Bars to the Pendleton Correctional Facility — one of 18 Indiana state prisons — Dec. 6 to tell groups of prisoners that “I’m no different than you. We wear different uniforms. But God loves you as much as He loves me. You’ve made some mistakes. That shouldn’t define your future. God can forgive.”
Sproles is not your typical sheriff. He is not a career law enforcement officer and he does not hesitate to share his faith. That may be an understatement.
The son of a pastor, he always had an interest in law enforcement, joining the Henry County Sheriffs Reserves in a volunteer position as soon as he was old enough. While doing that, he worked with his father in the construction projects and founded Heartland Christian School in New Castle in 2013, “which has grown from zero to over 200 students,” he shared.
A little over two years ago, he felt another calling. He had joined that sheriff’s department in 2019 as a full time deputy and what he observed confirmed earlier observations in his volunteer position.
“The one thing I did see in Henry County was a ‘good-old-boy’ system,” he said in a subsequent interview. “The (sheriff’s) position had become a retirement gig for lifetime officers. And the culture was ‘Shut your effin’ mouth and do what I say,’” he continued. “That was prevalent. The jail was in constant chaos, the inmates were in control because all the jail commander and officers did was yell and cuss at them.”
So, he decided to run for sheriff in the 2022 election. “The campaign was focused on whether Henry County citizens wanted to simply hand the torch over to the next person in line or into an era of professionalism, accountability and transparency,” he said.
The first debate with his opponent — a nearly 40-year veteran who had been the subject of a lawsuit for punching a handcuffed inmate in the face, resulting in “a $265,000 settlement that was swept under the rug,” Sproles said — was held in a “packed” Henry County courtroom.
“Here’s my exact words,” he said. “‘If I am elected as your next sheriff, the f-word on duty is gone.’ You wouldn’t have believed the reaction. A huge round of applause. It was kind of shocking.”
As a reserve, he had witnessed “too many times that officers simply got into a screaming match. Once you drop an f-bomb, you have lost your authority, you simply went right to their turf. Your professionalism is gone,” he told The News-Banner.
After winning what he described as a hotly contested race, “it’s been wonderful,” he said. “A lot of people left before I even took office.” He subsequently dismissed both his jail commander and deputy commander who continued, in his view, to mistreat the prisoners, and “the morale at our office is sky high. We are fully staffed. The former administration would run 8-10 full time correctional officers short and many patrol spots. They didn’t want to work in that culture.” Now they do, he said.
“Here’s what I discovered,” he continued. “People who work in that kind of atmosphere, where they only berated the prisoners and the f-bomb is so prevalent, they’re not happy people. A miserable culture, a miserable environment, made for miserable people.”
But he is adamant that “we run our jail very firmly,” he said. “Don’t misunderstand. (Inmates) know that if they mess up or trash their cell, there are consequences. But it’s not our job to further punish them. It is to take care of them and give them hope while they’re here. To encourage them for re-entry.” One of his instructions to his deputies is to stay in contact with people they had arrested to encourage them to move forward.
The result can also been seen in the jail’s atmosphere, which had included daily fights among inmates. “I think we’ve had to break up two fights in two years,” he said.
Sproles’ mission statement that he gives his entire staff is to “Do justice, love mercy and be humble,” a message he shared in his presentation at Pendleton, noting that “it comes right out of the Book of Judges.
“Sometimes doing justice means getting someone on the ground and under control,” he said. “But you can still show mercy and be humble.
“Another Biblical principle I give to my staff is the Golden Rule,” he said later. “If we can do those things, we win.”
“We’re firm, we’re not pushovers,” he reiterated. “When my dad set me straight — which he did of course from time to time — it was done in love. We try to treat our inmates the same way.”
Spores said that Lemuel Vega “called me out of the blue” as that first Christmas he was sheriff approached in 2023.
“I had already prepared little gift packets for our inmates for Christmas,” he shared, “when Lemuel called me and told me what he had and asked if he could come by, I said ’sure!’”
Sproles figures he had spent about $3,000 for a few candy bars and other items for his 200-some inmates, “but what Lemuel brought was five times that. It was phenomenal.”
“He had no clue what we did, and he was very welcoming,” Vega said. “So I invited him to our next visit to Pendleton (this past summer) and he didn’t hesitate.”
“So this is my second time here with Lemuel’s program,” Sproles said after one of his presentations Dec. 6. “I actually got a ‘thank-you’ letter from an inmate after that visit, and he came up to me today and said ‘I wondered if that sheriff was going to come back.’”
Sproles credits his upbringing. “I just have a huge compassion for underprivileged people, especially for those growing up in rough environments,” he concluded. “Those of us who grew up in loving, supportive homes, we have no clue how lucky we are.
“I think it’s important for the inmates to hear this from someone in a uniform: I love them, I care about them and I pray for them. It’s shocking the responses I get from them many times. They tell me they never had someone in authority tell them they care about them. It’s phenomenal.”
miller@news-banner.com
