It would be understandable if the kids attending Prison Fellowship’s Champion Sports Camp in Pompano Beach, Florida, felt they had nothing in common with the young woman addressing them Wednesday afternoon. She was, after all, the reigning Miss America, and most of the camp participants came from at-risk families, with at least one parent behind bars.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., June 18, 2012—Laura Kaeppeler has overcome some difficult obstacles on the way to becoming Miss America 2012 – including the challenges of being the child of a prison inmate. Next week in Fort Lauderdale, Prison Fellowship, the nation’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families – including Kaeppeler’s family while her father was incarcerated – will present its inaugural Angel Tree Star of Victory award to Kaeppeler in recognition of her achievements.
KCBS-TV in Los Angeles recently ran a feature story about Calicinto Ranch, a camp in southern California that caters to children of prisoners. Calicinto Ranch is a partner camp in the Angel Tree Camping program.
The video segment features interviews with six different campers of varying ages – each of whom currently has a parent behind bars.
Richard is a current inmate preparing for release. He recently was made aware of Inside Journal, and wants to make sure that those inmates who remain in prison after he has left have access to its message:
I am currently incarcerated.
“Everybody does it. … At least I’m not doing what they’re doing!”
The argument should sound juvenile to most adult listeners. Indeed, if we haven’t heard our children make such a case, we can most certainly remember a time when we ourselves presented such a defense to our parents.
What do former inmates cite as the keys to successful integration back into society? A group of former maximum-security prisoners from the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Missouri recently gathered to discuss what worked, what didn’t, and to offer their advice for preparing prisoners for reentry in the future.
Crossroad Bible Institute, a collaborating ministry with Prison Fellowship’s Operation Starting Line, is offering a new resource to recently-released inmates to help them develop a strong work ethic and establish a career path that will keep them out of prison in the future.
In a recent interview, World magazine editor in chief Marvin Olasky asks Prison Fellowship CEO Jim Liske about his church background, and how he came to be involved in in working with prisoners and their families.
“I had a family member who went to prison seven years ago,” Liske tells Olasky.
A graduate student at New York University has undertaken a project to catalogue all 5,393 correctional facilities currently operational in the United States. Using satelite imagery from Google, Josh Begley has gathered birds-eye views of each of these prisons and placed them on a single webpage.
Dr. Harold Dean Trulear is an ordained American Baptist minister, associate professor of applied theology at the Howard University School of Divinity, the director of the Healing Communities Prison Ministry and Reentry Project of the Philadelphia Leadership Foundation, and a fellow at the Center for Public Justice.
If you have been online over the last few days, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a link to a story by CNN about a prison facility in southern Norway. Situated on a picturesque island of Bastoy just off the Norwegian coast, the prison is noteworthy for both its bucolic setting and the almost country club atmosphere that it fosters.
A new television show in New Zealand is following four popular musicians in that country as they teach songwriting and performing to inmates in Arohata and Rimutaka prisons.
“Songs from the Inside,” a 13-episode documentary, examines the role music plays in rehabilitation by giving the inmates an outlet and a way to express themselves.
If Lolo Jones isn’t currently a household name, it likely will be very soon. The 29 year-old Olympic hurdler’s combination of athletic ability, engaging personality, and good looks have made her a favorite of both track fans and the national media.
“What are you going to do to help me when I get out?”
The question comes from Russell, an inmate at a medium-security prison who is studying for his GED and preparing for release. It was posed to Leonard Pitts Jr.,
On May 9, friends and family of Chuck Colson gathered at First Baptist Church in Naples, Florida – Chuck’s home congregation – to remember the Prison Fellowship founder, and to reflect on his life and his commitment to serving prisoners and their families.