“Hey, I couldn’t find love out around the corner, but I found love in the Department of Corrections.”

Khanika Harper, on how it feels to be a wedding officiant for inmates at the The Missouri Department of Corrections. Harper is a former psychiatric nurse; through her work, she met the partners of incarcerated men who wanted to get married but couldn’t find an officiant who would perform the ceremony inside a prison. She decided to get ordained, and has since married more than a dozen couples inside the state’s correctional facilities.. (The Marshall Project — Feb. 14, 2025)