Nearly every fourth Tuesday of the month, a shabby batch of bicycles arrives at the gates of Folsom State Prison.
Members of the Cameron Park Rotary Club collect the misfit bicycles from a warehouse in Diamond Springs, California, and send them off to Folsom to be repaired, repainted, and restored.
As Prison Fellowship celebrates our 40th anniversary, we are reminded how important our ministry partners are in bringing about transformation in the lives of prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families. From in-prison volunteers, to prison officials, to local church ministries and transitional housing, there are many people that continue to “remember the prisoner” and seek to restore them to their communities.
Most of us have them in our wallets or purses right now—little laminated cards with our names and a typically bad photograph that identifies who we are and where we live. They are of vital importance to any number of routine tasks, be it cashing a check, purchasing an airline ticket, or applying for a job.
Over the last quarter century, the number of women behind bars has increased by more than 700 percent. According to The Sentencing Project:
Half of those women were not employed full-time the month before incarceration. Nearly half had never finished high school.
Hot Chicken Takeover (HCT) is an up-and-coming restaurant in the trendy “Short North” neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio. The popular eatery boasts that it has the best “Nashville style” fried chicken and soul food in town, with long communal tables designed to allow patrons to share the experience with others.
A new initiative in Iowa is encouraging employers to consider hiring men and women with criminal records, highlighting the positive impact such hires can have for businesses and for their communities.
The United States Attorney’s Office will be presenting a series of three workshops across northern Iowa to help assist former prisoners to find and keep employment.
The following article appears in the Summer 2016 issue of Inside Journal, Prison Fellowship’s quarterly publication written specifically for incarcerated men and women. To learn more about Inside Journal, and to read or print out previous issues, click here.
William “Billy” Kidd used to live up to his outlaw name.
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.
When the Rev. Damita Davis-Howard’s son was released from his incarceration in 2014, he sought to rebuild his life. He moved in with his young son, his son’s mother, and her family, and attempted to be the father he himself had not had since his own had passed away when he was 13.
Roughly 60,000 teenagers currently reside in juvenile detention facilities across the United States. While detained, these young men and women are separated from their friends, family—and the schools which they had been attending.
A recent feature on the PBS Newshour takes a closer look at the importance of educating youth behind bars, focusing on the efforts being made at one facility in Lowell, Massachusetts.
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.
By the time he was 21, Jason Hernandez was already serving a life sentence in a federal prison. Arrested for running a 50-person drug distribution ring he inherited when his older brother J.J. was sent to prison, Hernandez figured he would be out and back on the streets within 24 hours.
In 1994, Congress passed a crime bill that strengthened penalties for drug offenses and earmarked billions of dollars for new prison construction. Prison populations across the country boomed as a result, with recidivism rates remaining high. Drug offenses became the leading reason for incarceration, but prisons nationwide struggled to provide programming capable of breaking the cycle of incarceration, release, and rearrest.
Searching for employment can be a frustrating and difficult experience even in the best of situations. There is always the challenge to present oneself in the most positive light, and assure the employer that you can be an asset to their business or organization.
In celebration of Prison Fellowship’s 40 years of ministering to prisoners and their families, we will be taking a look back at the early days of the ministry and remembering the people and the stories that have helped to make Prison Fellowship the nation’s largest prison outreach.