PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG

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?

Initially, Tony Torrez wasn’t sure if prison ministry was his calling. He didn’t know how he would connect with the prisoners and felt he was already making a difference in the homeless community. However, after a volunteer at the Arizona State Prison at Winslow persuaded him to come to an orientation, he couldn’t say no to becoming involved.

The following article originally appeared on the Worldview Church website, a ministry of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview that is part of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

In Shawshank Redemption, “Red,” the character played by Morgan Freeman, calmly tells new inmate Andy Dufresne, “Haven’t you heard?

Antoinette Tuff was sitting at the front desk of the elementary school where she worked when a mentally unstable young man entered with an assault rifle and a bag full of ammunition. But instead of the too-familiar narrative of a tragic school shooting, another drama played out.

“How do people forgive a crime like murder?”  The headline from a BBC News Magazine story asks a question that most of us hope we never have to answer, but it is a question that we would all be wise to ponder.

Athletic events have proven to be a successful channel for encouraging all different kinds of people to get involved in prison ministry.

Every individual is addicted to something, and every individual has an opportunity to be restored. In the most recent Frontlines, Prison Fellowship CEO Jim Liske recounts the story of a current PF volunteer and former methamphetamine addict who has become a part of the restoration process in the lives of others.

Things tend to work most effectively when they most closely follow the intent of their designer. A German roadster is at its best when it’s hugging the asphalt of the Autobahn, but it wasn’t designed to take a family of six to soccer practice – at least not comfortably.

Leigh Littrell sat in the local county jail parking lot, praying her heart out. Lord, she asked, as she tried to get ready to assist teaching a class to female inmates, help me see these women through Your eyes. Give me your love for them, because I can’t do it in my own strength!

This Saturday, the Florida Department of Corrections and Sesame Workshop, Sesame Street’s nonprofit organization, will partner together to bring the “Little Children, Big Challenges” project offline and into the real world.

“[The] vast prison-industrial complex has succeeded in reducing crime but is a blunt instrument,” National Review columnist Rich Lowry writes in a recent online article. “Prison stays often constitute a graduate seminar in crime, and at the very least, the system does a poor job preparing prisoners to return to the real world.”

Volunteer. It’s a word we hear frequently. We volunteer at church, at our children’s schools, and around the neighborhood. But is it a word we associate with Jesus?

“Volunteer” comes from a Latin word that means “willing” or “acting without compulsion.”

Speaking to a gathering of the American Bar Association in San Francisco on August 12, Attorney General Eric Holder announced sweeping changes to current sentencing practices that will allow for greater flexibility and eliminate “mandatory minimum” sentencing for many non-violent offenders.

Over 50 percent of prisoners currently suffer from substance abuse addiction, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Another 20 percent either have histories of substance abuse, were under the influence of alcohol or other drugs at the time they committed their crimes, or committed their offenses to get money to buy drugs.