PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG

Drawing upon his decades of experience, we asked Prison Fellowship volunteer Ashton Hardy the top three characteristics he believes are most important for volunteers who want to work effectively with prisoners. He gave us seven!

Unlike most Prison Fellowship volunteers (or staff!),

Prison Fellowship says the U.S. has done a great job of getting criminals off the street.  What we haven’t done a good job of, says the ministry, is getting criminals ready to come back onto the street.  The president of Prison Fellowship shares with Phil Fleischman about a program that challenges the Church to help former inmates transition back into society.

For all the advantages the Internet age provides, it doesn’t come close to replacing the core need of the Church to shine the light of the Gospel in the lives of prisoners. That means “life on life”: Getting up close and personal, dealing with the messiness of broken lives, and letting God’s grace and power go to work.

If you have an interest in assisting the families of prisoners, then the following two articles may help point you toward your next step. The first piece provides updated trends on the problems incarceration inflicts on families and the second is a tool to help children deal with the fallout of separation.

These words of praise and appreciation were written by Jill Colon, an ex-prisoner in Florida who was mentored by PF volunteers Ginger Martin and Esther Martinez. However, they echo the sentiments of many prisoners and former prisoners whose lives have been touched by caring and consistent volunteers like you.

Before joining the staff of Prison Fellowship in 2007, Patti Tasa was a vibrant volunteer—serving inside prison for three years, then another three years as county coordinator for one of Prison Fellowship’s Aftercare Teams. Her long-standing mentoring relationship with ex-prisoner Tina Huber  has given her valuable experience and insights to share with other mentors.

Virginia lawmakers are listening to Prison Fellowship for advice on cutting the state’s correction budget and driving down the incarceration rate.

Time magazine reporter Amy Sullivan recently interviewed Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson for the magazine’s website.  Read what Chuck has to say about the new Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and its roots in prison ministry.

Click here to read the Time magazine interview.

Prison Fellowship and the ACLU demand end to censoring of materials sent to a Virginia prison.

Prison reform has long been a hot-button issue for Prison Fellowship®, one that has often taken our staff to Capitol Hill. Now the same issue has once again made its way to the Senate. On Thursday, June 11, 2009, Senators Jim Webb, D-Va.,

It was hard not to notice the man who couldn’t stop crying. Mostly he kept his head down, but every time he lifted it up, tears were streaming down his cheeks. That was March 7, and Prison Fellowship® volunteer Sandra Tarlen was leading a seminar on forgiveness for a group of prisoners at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson.

Book Review: Held Hostage

Ken Cooper’s dramatic life story will not break new ground for the genre of second-chance transformation stories. It is a well-told account of a fascinating life. But this autobiography does do something other books have not—help pry us away from some societal views that have held people’s minds hostage concerning causes for crime and their ultimate solution.

Today more than 2.3 million men and women are incarcerated in the U.S. In the last 20 years, the prison population has nearly tripled, until now one of every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

But they don’t stay there. According to the U.