PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG

Although people with loving, Christian parents do make choices that lead to prison, unhealthy home environments are more closely linked to criminal behavior. But why do abuse and neglect predispose children toward deviancy as adults? A major research paper sheds light on how human beings are biologically designed to seek nurturing relationships and spiritual purpose, and how the absence of these beneficial influences adversely affects brain development.

When fresh from prison, Sarah Montoya-Lewis attended church with her school-age daughter on the day of an Angel Tree backpack giveaway. She asked for a backpack for her daughter, and though none remained, Sarah left with much more—an instant friend in Angel Tree coordinator Barb Steward.

Ending prison rape is a cause that recently brought together an unlikely group of organizations. Normally opposed to one another, leaders from both the left and right joined together to call on Attorney General Eric Holder to quickly adopt standards that will hold prison officials accountable for combating rape in prisons across America.

One Sunday morning in November 2008, Edwin Wolff penned in his journal: “One year from now, I want to have a stable job, a vehicle, and be published on some national level.”

Two months earlier—on September 12—Edwin walked out of the Huntsville Unit prison in Huntsville, Texas.

A new organization in the region wants to help people who have served jail or prison time integrate more easily into the community.

The Out4Life Statewide Reentry Coalition wants to bring existing area agencies together to encourage development of church-, faith- and community-based re-entry initiatives.

When asked to describe his volunteer work at a local pre-release center, Beaver Hardy, 71,  issues his usual warning: “If you come, you’re going to get hooked, and you’re going to stay.”

Beaver Hardy, 71, is savoring his share of fried flounder.

We know that to develop into the best we can be—from sports to the arts to business to the military to academics—we must embrace discipline. Except perhaps for prodigies, there is no other way.

But when it comes to our spiritual development, discipline suddenly sounds like a dirty word.

Prison Fellowship has relaunched Inside Journal, a newspaper that reaches thousands of incarcerated men and women with the hope of the Gospel. With a starting circulation of 50,000 copies, Inside Journal has a new look after a hiatus in its publication, but it retains the elements that made it a widely read and admired resource in our nation’s prisons for nearly two decades.

“No matter how terrible the crime, no prison sentence includes being raped,” says Prison Fellowship Vice President Pat Nolan, a former federal prisoner who leads the organization’s Justice Fellowship criminal justice reform program. In this radio interview, Pat talks about the urgency to eradicate sexual abuse in prisons and what his organization is doing to ensure safety and justice for the incarcerated.

Religious leaders and civil rights advocates are pressing the Department of Justice to implement national standards to help prevent an estimated 60,000 cases of prison rape each year.

Pat Nolan, vice president of Prison Fellowship and a member of the commission that submitted the standards to Holder, told reporters that tens of thousands of inmates will be raped in the next year “because we haven’t taken steps to prevent it.

Liberals and conservatives have united in calling for the U.S. attorney general to implement standards against a form of prison violence.

Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003, but even though standards were completed within 14 months, Attorney General Eric Holder has yet to implement them.

A number of groups who couldn’t be more different are single-minded on eliminating prison rape. Prison Fellowship, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Family Research Council, Human Rights Watch, Focus on the Family, Sojourners, and others signed onto a letter Tuesday urging U.S.