PRISON FELLOWSHIP: Prison Fellowship Academy

Prison Fellowship's interview with a veteran of the Oklahoma prison system.

"Over time our love for each other became weaker, and our love for drugs became stronger."

"He thought he was 'big pimping' … He thought he was the greatest guy who ever touched Earth."

"I may not understand the purpose for this right now, but I can trust Him with my health and life."

I am not proud about coming to prison and the time I've spent away from my only son, but God needed to save me from the life I was living or I wouldn't have been a mother much longer.

For Brandon, the New Leaf Project was a difficult class to attend, yet it was the most impactful.

My name is Angelina, and I have complete freedom, even though I am in prison at Shakopee.

It wasn't until I was 15 years into my 30-year-plus life sentence before I gave my life to Christ.

Hope still bears the scars of her birth parents' war with addiction. Heroin and alcoholism left her childhood marked with abandonment, isolation, and worthlessness. Even after she was adopted, Hope struggled with thoughts of suicide.

I have been incarcerated for four years. I have learned that God doesn't see me as a [number], but He sees me as Emily. I am a child of the one true King, highly favored and dearly loved!

Earlier this week, Insider took you behind the walls on Rikers Island to December's Prison Fellowship Academy™y graduation.

Rikers Island is the main jail complex for New York City. On average the daily population is 10,000, making Rikers one of the world's largest correctional institutions.

"I was certified as an adult when I was 17 years old and have been locked up for the last 15 years," Robert writes from the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Lino Lakes.

From his wife’s hand, John drew his first snort of meth. One encounter with the choice fruit plunged him into a twisted romance with addiction.