When men and women who have been convicted of a crime are incarcerated, the sentence almost always extends beyond the prisoner. Spouses, parents, and children all “serve time” with their loved ones behind bars, suffering silently as they pay the price together for past misdeeds.
Roughly 60,000 teenagers currently reside in juvenile detention facilities across the United States. While detained, these young men and women are separated from their friends, family—and the schools which they had been attending.
A recent feature on the PBS Newshour takes a closer look at the importance of educating youth behind bars, focusing on the efforts being made at one facility in Lowell, Massachusetts.
The parking lot of the Durham (NC) County Jail is not a place most people would see as a location for religious revival, but on June 25, this unlikely setting served as the site for the baptism of 39 of the jail’s prisoners.
When the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was first built in 1829, it promised to be the leading edge of what was to be a reform of the corrections systems around the world. In contrast to other prisons that focused primarily on retribution, Eastern State put an emphasis on reform instead of punishment, and served as the model for more than 300 prisons worldwide.
Kate Boccia knows what it’s like to struggle with a loved one behind bars. When her son, Daniel, was sentenced to 15 years behind bars for armed robbery, she experienced all the emotional and financial struggles that come with having an incarcerated family member.
There is little debate remaining that the United States has a significant problem with the recidivism of former prisoners. Department of Justice statistics show that one-third of released prisoners are rearrested in their first year outside prison walls. Within three years, that number jumps to 50 percent, and then to 75 percent over five years.
When another man confessed to the string of murders for which Davontae Sanford had been convicted, he felt that his long nightmare was over.
Arrested at age 14, Sanford had spent nine years in the Michigan corrections system. Now, with his conviction overturned, it appeared that he could once again return to his community and begin to piece his life together again.
In 1992, Bryan Kelley was sentenced to life for murdering a man in a drug deal gone bad. As many in his situation have done, he spent time during his first few months in prison reflecting on his past decisions and regretting previous choices.
It is no secret that the last several decades have not been kind to the city of Detroit. Once a thriving center of industry and the undisputed champion of automobile manufacturing, Detroit has seen its population shrink, its unemployment rates skyrocket, and its infrastructure crumble.
By the time he was 21, Jason Hernandez was already serving a life sentence in a federal prison. Arrested for running a 50-person drug distribution ring he inherited when his older brother J.J. was sent to prison, Hernandez figured he would be out and back on the streets within 24 hours.
Prison can be a dark, lonely place. The isolation; the ever-present threat of violence; the cold, bare walls and heavy iron bars—it’s not surprising that some of those inside corrections facilities struggle with maintaining their emotional and mental health.
And that struggle is not just limited to prisoners.
If there was something someone could have said or done that would have changed the path that led you here, what would it have been?
The question is a simple one, yet full of profundity. It is nearly universal in application—who among us doesn’t have a past decision that we lament?
Does your church have an active ministry focused on prisoners and their families? For most congregations in the United States, the answer to that question is “no.”
A new study by LifeWay Research reveals that while more than four out of five pastors have visited a correctional facility at some time, and virtually all believe it is the Church’s responsibility to help returning prisoners and care for their families, few have contact with current or former prisoners as a regular part of their ministry.
On May 25, mere steps from the Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC, Prison Fellowship announced the launch of the Faith and Justice Fellowship. The new bipartisan collaboration brings together a disparate group of policy makers from various faith traditions, united in a desire to promote restorative values in the criminal justice system.
When it comes to helping prisoners transition successfully to life in their communities, some of the most important work occurs well before these men and women ever leave the correctional facility. In the most recent post to our video blog series, field director Denise Harris talks about some of the great things happening with Prison Fellowship’s intensive, in-prison programming.