Dear John,
I am so grateful for the opportunity to share again with you the many ways the Lord continues to provide for our important work during this season!
With the second-highest number of prisoners of any state in the country, the California Department of Corrections (DOC) continues to be an important partner for our in-prison work. We have programming in each of the state prisons and Prison Fellowship Academy sites in nearly half of them. That’s why I’m excited to share with you the newly announced partnership with the Western Territory of The Salvation Army. This new partnership will allow returning citizens in California who have completed Prison Fellowship in-prison programming to utilize The Salvation Army's Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) residential program and will serve as a pilot program for the partnership to expand to other states around the country.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 65% of the current prison population has some type of addiction problem before committing their crime. The ARC residential program provides housing, food, counseling, community, and employment as they work to treat the symptoms, and ultimately the root causes, of prolonged alcohol and drug dependence. We’re excited to partner with The Salvation Army to make these services available to Prison Fellowship program graduates.
November will be a big month for us in another area of our prison programming: Hope Events. If you’ll recall, we recently hosted our first “outside-in” Hope Event where we set up outside the prison security fence, while prisoners gathered, socially distant, on the other side to experience music, entertainment, and the Gospel presentation. These events have proven so popular with our DOC partners that we’ve got several more scheduled in various states this month. We’re so grateful to continue bringing the hope of Jesus to prisons in this creative way.
Finally, as we turn the page on the most recent election season, I would like to ask all of us to “remember those in prison” by continuing the fight to restore voting rights for those who have paid their debt to society. Today, about 5 million Americans are unable to vote because of previous felony convictions. Our own founder, Chuck Colson, lost his right to vote until Governor Jeb Bush restored it in 2000. Here are some of Chuck’s own words on the topic, penned shortly before he passed in 2012:
| Voting doesn’t pose a threat to public safety. Sound criminal justice policy has always held that the goal of punishment and rehabilitation is to turn ex-offenders into responsible citizens. And once they show that they can be responsible, there can be no justification—besides scoring political points—for refusing to restore their civil rights. |
Thank you for your faithful support of the work we do here at Prison Fellowship. Please share your family’s prayer needs, and we would be honored to lift up any requests on your behalf.
Blessings,
JAMES J. ACKERMAN
President and Chief Executive Officer
