PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG: Prison Fellowship News & Updates

Although people with loving, Christian parents do make choices that lead to prison, unhealthy home environments are more closely linked to criminal behavior. But why do abuse and neglect predispose children toward deviancy as adults? A major research paper sheds light on how human beings are biologically designed to seek nurturing relationships and spiritual purpose, and how the absence of these beneficial influences adversely affects brain development.

As a successful commodities broker, Jake Hall made a good living. After spending time in prison, though, he couldn’t even get a job washing dishes. He filled out innumerable applications, but when employers saw the checked felony box, they would tell him “no thanks,” or simply throw the application away.

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.

When asked to describe his volunteer work at a local pre-release center, Beaver Hardy, 71,  issues his usual warning: “If you come, you’re going to get hooked, and you’re going to stay.”

Beaver Hardy, 71, is savoring his share of fried flounder.

We know that to develop into the best we can be—from sports to the arts to business to the military to academics—we must embrace discipline. Except perhaps for prodigies, there is no other way.

But when it comes to our spiritual development, discipline suddenly sounds like a dirty word.

Prison Fellowship has relaunched Inside Journal, a newspaper that reaches thousands of incarcerated men and women with the hope of the Gospel. With a starting circulation of 50,000 copies, Inside Journal has a new look after a hiatus in its publication, but it retains the elements that made it a widely read and admired resource in our nation’s prisons for nearly two decades.

Robert* was going home—if he could figure out how. An ex-prisoner who encountered Christ behind bars, he felt led upon release to start somewhere new. He sold his possessions, scrounged up $500, and set off in a donated van with no fixed destination.

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?

Debbie Walsh cannot remember the first time she met volunteer Robert Ramos. But that, she says, merely demonstrates his soft-spoken, unassuming demeanor. When this former prisoner shared his testimony during Operation Starting Line (OSL) in-prison evangelistic events, “men and women listened intently,” says OSL organizer Debbie, “for his story was told in a straightforward, unembellished way.”

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.

Joan Fabian has served in county and state corrections for 45 years, the last seven as Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections. In May the Minnesota DOC joined with Prison Fellowship in co-sponsoring an Out4Life Conference in Minneapolis as a springboard to establishing coalitions throughout the state to assist prisoners returning to their communities.

One of the greatest issues currently facing America’s communities is the reintegration of 650,000 former prisoners over the next year. The most hopeful response that I have seen to this dilemma has been the movement around the nation that engages communities to work together through coalitions that serve the needs of these returning men and women.

Tony Chantaca, 16, jumped from the stolen car in the wash of flashing blue lights. Mind clouded with inhalants, legs pumping against the asphalt, he ran. A policeman, hot behind him, sprang and tackled the teenager to the ground. Tony fought to pry the officer’s gun from its holster.