There are certain sounds that most of us associate with prisons: the metal clank of a cell door closing, the thud of heavy-booted corrections officers walking the corridors, the voices of angry prisoners echoing against the bare cement walls.
What you might not expect, however, are four-part vocal harmonies.
Having retired following 18 years as a corrections officer at several facilities in Michigan, Billy Stewart is once again returning to prison—this time as a volunteer with Prison Fellowship. Denise Harris, Prison Fellowship’s field director for the Detroit area, asks Billy to share his thoughts about his perspective of prisoners as an officer, and what is taking him back behind bars.
John Jennings stood in the courtroom, looking into the eyes of the man who had murdered his son. This man had been his son’s friend, but one night, this “friend” took John’s son into the woods, demanded his money, and shot him.
The Albuquerque Business First journal recently asked its readers a probing question—would you hire someone who had just been released from prison?
Responses were predictably varied, with many respondents answering affirmatively. Those that did say they would hire a former prisoner typically cited the importance of second chances and a need to break the cycle of recidivism.
In January 2014, the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections was established to examine the challenges facing the federal corrections system and to propose practical solutions to those challenges. Named after the Prison Fellowship founder, the task force sought answers for some of the biggest problems facing federal prisons, including growing prison populations, high rates of recidivism, and the increasing costs of incarceration.
What is the image that comes to mind when you think of a prison warden?
Statistically speaking, the Central City neighborhood in New Orleans is one of the most crime-plagued communities in the country. It has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the Crescent City, and is the most incarcerated neighborhood, in the most incarcerated parish, in the most incarcerated state per capita in the nation.
Imagine being transported 50 years into the future. Things that were once commonplace have disappeared, or have become quaint relics of an earlier time. In their place are new items and technologies that you don’t understand and can’t use. The food people eat and the clothes they wear are different than you remember, and at a much higher cost than before.
On Friday, November 20, WUSA9 aired interviews with Prison Fellowship’s Jesse Wiese and Craig DeRoche about the landmark Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act currently before the Senate.
The legislation has been named by some as the biggest criminal justice reform bill in this generation.
On a recent trip to Michigan, I approached a man that I thought was our local Prison Fellowship field director. I hugged him and thanked him for all he was doing.
When I asked how he was, he said, “I’ve been out for three months, and I am an associate pastor!”
In moments of challenge, you and I have two options: We can yield to anxiety, or we can choose thanksgiving. We can rejoice in our secure spiritual inheritance. We can rest in God’s promises of provision. We can trust the One who holds us in the palms of His nail-scarred hands.
“For me, having a husband that’s incarcerated, it’s like we’re incarcerated too.”
Shamika Wilson is expressing the experience of many who have a family member behind bars. In a short video produced by Al-Jazeera, Wilson and several other people who have had their families separated by incarceration express the challenges—financial, emotional, and even physical—of having a spouse, a sibling, or a parent in prison.