We arrived at the Sanders Estes Unit in Venus, Texas and pulled into a parking lot that could have been outside hundreds of correctional institutions all over the United States. The double fence, gates, razor-wired, small slit windows, and cold heavy doors were “standard issue.”
Camp Crucis is a “nice” camp. It does not have horses, boats, or zip lines. It has crafts, a swimming pool, healthy food, solid clean facilities, and air conditioning. It also has an unlimited supply of the love of Jesus.
It was hot and dry in Granbury, Texas—just south of Fort Worth.
Angel Tree® camping is a Prison Fellowship® program where kids of incarcerated parents attend Christian summer camps to have fun with friends, build relationships with counselors, and hear the gospel. Many of the children will make a first-time decision to trust in Jesus Christ.
Inside Journal is Prison Fellowship’s newspaper for America’s prisoners. Chockfull of biblical advice articles, interesting profiles, and a presentation of the Gospel that prisoners can relate to, Inside Journal is a valuable, cost-effective prison ministry resource. It currently circulates to 47 states.
At Prison Fellowship, one big thing gets us out of bed in the morning: witnessing the transformation of prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families through the saving love, truth and power of Jesus Christ. And for 35 years, we’ve consistently found that this transformation takes places most powerfully when the local Church is equipped and excited to make disciples behind bars.
“My daddy’s in jail.”
My new little friend volunteered that information when he was introduced to my son and me. He is four years old and has only ever known his dad behind bars, on probation, or on parole. There have been times when he has known his dad to be running from law enforcement.
Inside Journal®, Prison Fellowship’s newspaper for America’s prisoners, is a powerful tool to reach inmates who might never cross paths with a Christian volunteer. Today, I got a letter from a federal inmate named José. His words put tears in my eyes and reminded me why we invest time, energy, and resources into this publication; I couldn’t resist sharing them with you.
Liberia’s brutal civil war ended more than 15 years ago, but for Francis Kollie, PF Liberia Executive Director, the struggles and the consequences from it are still very much a part of the present.
The devastating war that lasted from 1989 until 1996 claimed an estimated 200,000 lives and displaced millions to refugee camps in neighboring countries.
I hear the train a comin’, it’s rollin’ ’round the bend, and I ain’t seen the sunshine, since, I don’t know when. I‘m stuck in Folsom Prison, and time keeps draggin’ on. . . ”
– Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues
The prison portrayed in Cash’s song is a far cry from Norway’s Halden Prison, where the mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik may end up serving time.
Serving Life, a look at inmates who volunteer to provide hospice care to fellow inmates nearing the end of their life sentences, airs tonight (8/28) on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Hank Stuever at the Washington Post has a good review of the program here.
Whether unpacking the moral debate occasioned by capital punishment or finding larger meaning in the prison rodeo, documentary filmmakers are often quite at home behind the razor wire of America’s high-security penitentiaries. They love the prison milieu and enjoy unlocking the many complicated stories that lurk behind bars.
In an important prosecutorial-misconduct case this term, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority threw out a $14 million jury award for a New Orleans man who was imprisoned for 18 years, including 14 on death row, for a robbery and a murder he did not commit.
The Cuomo administration, following through on one of the most contentious cutbacks included in the state budget, said Thursday that it would close seven of New York’s dozens of prisons, including a facility in the Bronx and one on Staten Island.
Fifteen men darted across the room, their faces slathered in greasepaint, reciting lines from “Tartuffe.” The stage, such as it was, was a low-ceilinged recreation room, and the cast was a troupe of felons who had just stepped in from the dusty yard of the California Rehabilitation Center.
Thousands of prisoners convicted of crimes related to crack cocaine could get shorter sentences under a revised policy enacted Thursday by the federal agency that helps to set punishment policy.
The agency, the United States Sentencing Commission, voted unanimously to apply retroactively a new law that brings penalties for crack cocaine offenses more closely in line with those for powder cocaine.