In a recent edition of Inside Journal®, Prison Fellowship’s newspaper for men and women behind bars, I asked our readers this question: What should we do to make our streets safer from gun violence?
You might be thinking, What would criminals know or care about stopping violence? Aren’t they the problem?
But the truth is that we’re all experts at our own failures, and we have unique insights about how we and others can avoid them in the future. Think about it: God used a recovering alcoholic – not a teetotaler – to found Alcoholic Anonymous. And every part of Prison Fellowship Ministries, whether it’s family ministry, prisoner discipleship, justice reform, or worldview ministry, can trace its founding back to an ex-prisoner: Chuck Colson.
Likewise, when I posed that question to our readers, I was answered with some remarkable wisdom from Tori, a “failure expert” serving time for murder with a firearm.
“Several points I can make as far as how I think children can be made safer from gun violence,” he wrote. “… [One way is to] care. I was just 16 years old at the time of my crime. I didn’t care about anyone on this planet, because I felt no one cared for me … And of course we need to stop the sale of military-style weapons, which no one can deny, but I’m of a mind that a Band-Aid won’t heal a broken leg. We need to heal the hearts and minds of people who would even contemplate such a thing as murder, or any type of violence. And we can only do that through our own loving and caring actions toward others.”
Amen.
Will you join me in preventing crime through “loving and caring actions”? Learn how at prisonfellowship.org.