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.
The following is a version of remarks given by Prison Fellowship President and CEO Jim Liske at Movement Day NYC, a gathering of Christian leaders discussing how to cultivate Gospel movements in urban areas across the country. For more information about Movement Day, visit www.movementday.com.
Speaking in front of an audience at a New Jersey drug treatment center, President Obama announced on Monday the passing of an executive order that will prevent employers from asking potential federal employees on their job applications if they have a criminal record.
Ron and Phil sat side-by-side on a platform, sharing about the decades that their life stories have intertwined. The journey began when Ron, then a drug addict desperately seeking cash, shot and killed Phil’s father.
After Ron pulled the trigger, he went to prison.
A lot of the inmates don’t know the lyrics to contemporary Christian songs, and some of them can’t read the words in a hymn book. “But everyone knows ‘Amazing Grace,’” says college junior Stephanie Gibbs. “And that’s when it sounds like we’re going to knock the walls down!”
This Thanksgiving, Beth will be celebrating how God has continued to transform her and use her during this year since her release.
Among the challenges facing many of the men and women returning from prison is finding a faith community where they will be welcomed, supported, and encouraged as they learn to adapt to life outside prison walls.
The Rev. Dr. Chappell Temple, pastor at Christ Methodist Church in Sugarland, Texas, has partnered with Prison Fellowship in serving the incarcerated in his community.
For men and women who have committed crimes, the biggest challenge often isn’t being incarcerated—it’s dealing with ongoing perceptions that they are, because of their past, forever tagged as “criminal” and subjected to a status that is somewhat less than human.
Katherine Thompson recently served as a policy intern with Justice Fellowship. A version of the following article originally appeared on the House of Margaret Thatcher website, and is used here with permission.
If I could attend church in prison every week, I would.
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As counterintuitive as it may seem, over the past five years both crime and imprisonment have declined. At least in 30 states.
Earlier today, The Pew Charitable Trusts released an infographic that illustrates this positive trend. According to its research, Pew found that between 2009 and 2014, the national imprisonment rate fell 7 percent, while the crime rate fell 15 percent (that’s half of the crime rate from 1991).