PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG: Reentry

Tim Montgomery has always been fast.

A track legend in his hometown of Gaffney, South Carolina, Montgomery established himself as a sprinter from an early age. In college, he ran a sub-10-second 100 meters, only missing out on setting a world junior record when it was discovered the track was three centimeters too short.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.  – 2 Corinthians 5:17

Increasingly, the great concern of legislators and departments of correction has been finding better ways to reduce recidivism—that tendency of former prisoners to relapse into criminal behavior.

The written word. It has the muscle to enlarge minds.

To touch hearts.

To educate and inspire.

That’s why Mike Oliver collects and organizes books each week that will be sent to Florida prisoners.

But there’s another reason.

Five years ago, Oliver, 72, was incarcerated and knows how good it felt to receive reading material while serving time.

Scan the radio dial on any summer road trip, and you will find no shortage of talk radio programming. Whether conservative, liberal, or somewhere in-between, there are always plenty of people who are willing to share their opinions and their experiences about the events and issues of the day.

Dozens of prisoners in Florence, Arizona, just can’t wait to get up for work in the morning.

The minimum-security prisoners pair up with mustangs and burros at Florence State Prison for a unique job opportunity. In an effort to protect local rangelands and teach men behind bars a new trade, the Arizona DOC partnered with the Bureau of Land Management to form the Wild Horse Inmate Program (WHIP).

The need to be heard. It’s a core craving for all humanity. But for those behind prison bars, voices are mostly muffled, or at least, dismissed.

Because of New York artist Lauren Adelman and juvenile defender Francine Sherman, voices from prison are being heard and appreciated in the form of artistic expression.

Boston’s roughest neighborhoods are hardly foreign territory to Luis Rodrigues. At 11 years old, he began roaming those streets as a crack dealer. That lifestyle continued for years, until his life was nearly taken from him.

One night in 2008, Luis was shot repeatedly at close-range.

There is little debate remaining that the United States has a significant problem with the recidivism of former prisoners. Department of Justice statistics show that one-third of released prisoners are rearrested in their first year outside prison walls. Within three years, that number jumps to 50 percent, and then to 75 percent over five years.

When another man confessed to the string of murders for which Davontae Sanford had been convicted, he felt that his long nightmare was over.

Arrested at age 14, Sanford had spent nine years in the Michigan corrections system. Now, with his conviction overturned, it appeared that he could once again return to his community and begin to piece his life together again.

There’s a little taste of Honduras in Skagit County, Washington. It’s called the Underground Coffee Project, a business run by a group of former prisoners who roast and sell an artisan blend of Honduran coffee beans.

It began as the vision of Bob Ekblad, who led in-prison Bible studies and built friendships with the men behind bars.