Until this past December, conservatives have often turned a blind eye to the excesses and failures of the criminal justice system. I was certainly guilty of that when I was in the California State Assembly. However, the current fiscal crisis, in which every state faces a deficit, has prompted these conservatives to speak out.
Since 1985 the population of female prisoners has risen at nearly double the rate of males. Because women prisoners have historically been few, however, corrections policy has often not taken gender-specific needs into account. But over time, it has become increasingly obvious that female prisoners have different needs than men.
Chris Cleveland smoked his first joint at age 12. He remembers because that year his father and mother finally divorced.
Over the next year, 650,000 prisoners will be released across the United States. And, unfortunately, their likelihood of returning to prison is high—unless someone steps in to help them out.
Bridge churches around the country are taking on that role. A bridge church, according to Prison Fellowship® Executive Director Mark Hubbell, is a church that’s “passionate about ministering to former prisoners.”
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.
For more than 14 years, Prison Fellowship’s reform arm, Justice Fellowship, has worked to make sentences for drug crimes fairer. We have been part of a large number of groups working to narrow the disparity in sentences between crack and powder cocaine.
Have you been looking for a way to gently ease your church into prison ministry? A way to involve others who might not yet be ready to volunteer inside a prison or work directly with released prisoners?
A way to give others just a taste of reaching out to prisoners that may whet their appetite for more?
Tony Davis never thought he would appear on a panel about employing ex-offenders at an Out4Life Reentry Summit for coalition members, but he’s well-qualified.
On most days Tony, 32, works outdoors with his five-man auto maintenance crew in the sweltering heat of Sulphur, Louisiana.
No rational parent would toss the car keys to a teenager who has never driven before and expect him to drive through traffic without causing casualties. Likewise, pushing prisoners back into our communities without the right preparation and resources and expecting them to stay out of trouble is foolhardy.
She thought it was a good deed; the law said otherwise, and 67-year-old Sandra McFeeley learned she could face two years in prison and a $10,000 fine. For pruning.
Deputy Police Chief Rick Watson said his officers had grounds to make the arrest because the parks department filed a report of damage.
For many of the 700,000 prisoners released to American neighborhoods each year, the return to society looks bleak. After months or years in an environment prone to eroding decision-making skills, many will take their bus fare and the clothes on their backs and head straight back to familiar territory: addictions, broken relationships, and crime.