Deep inside the Charleston County jail, this program is trying to reach out to men who see crime as the answer. By bringing criminals and crime victims together, teacher Amy Barch hopes to show what happens on the other side of their deeds, brutality and triggers.

“They have the capacity to change and repair harm,” she said.

Whether Barch’s efforts are working is unclear, largely because her “Turning Leafs Project” is in its infancy. But anecdotal information suggests that progress is being made.

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… a report that was released Thursday (March 22) by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, based on the perceptions of 730 chaplains who serve in the nation’s state prison systems, [shows that]…as the U.S. has grown more religiously diverse, the prison population has, too, but often in different directions, said Stephanie Boddie, a senior researcher on the study.

“The unaffiliated is growing in the general population but it’s decreasing in the prison population,” said Boddie, who noted the Pew findings are based on the impressions of chaplains rather than official prison statistics.

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Please remember him in prayer.

Everyone willing to follow the Lord is supposed to have listened in some way to this seemingly imperious command: “Come!” a command which implies an act of faith, referred to sometimes as the “leap of faith.” As it is clear from the Scriptures, what we are able to see is not faith, as the biblical faith is defined as : “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” We have to decide “in spite of”’, in order to experience the power of God. But we need to remember that everything must be done according the Word of God. Peter did not experience the possibility to walk on water because he decided to leave the boat but because of the Word, the Command of the Lord.

The Word of God tell us to “expect to suffer hardship” and dishonor for the sake of His Name. Our Christian confession is not acceptable if we ignore this statement, if we do not manifest the patience of the Lord in our sufferings. Anybody ignoring it will be ashamed in that day.

Let us remember that sometimes the leap of faith leads us towards some impasses. Just as the Word led the sons of Israel leaving Egypt toward the impasse of the Red sea. These impasses are midway between promises of God and their fulfillments and they challenge our faith. Believers are to accept these challenges as a part of their spiritual course. The Son was challenged at Calvary in the hardest way, as it is written in the Scriptures….

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The Christian Lutheran Church of Honduras (ICHL) is demanding an inquiry into a fire at the central jail in Comayagua that killed 350 prisoners on 14 February.

The ICHL, a member of the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation (LWF), also said it was praying for wisdom on the part of the country’s leaders as they decide how to safeguard the rights of prisoners, according to a news release from the LWF’s information service, Lutheran World Information.

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The Church of England could lose its traditional role as the provider of the chief chaplain to the Prison Service.

The Ministry of Justice has confirmed it is “considering arrangements” for appointing a new Chaplain-General – but the job might not go to an Anglican.

Prison chaplains can be of different religions and denominations, but the 1952 Prison Act requires every jail to have an Anglican chaplain.

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[DEBORAH] POTTER: More than two million Americans are now imprisoned, four times as many as 30 years ago. The major reason: Mandatory sentencing for non-violent crimes and drug charges.

But the war on drugs, declared in the 1980s, has not had the effect its backers predicted. Arkansas Circuit Judge Wendell Griffin has seen the results.

JUDGE WENDELL GRIFFEN (Arkansas Circuit Court): Drug use has not declined. All it has done has produced an explosion on our prison population. The whole mandatory sentencing guideline mantra was sort of like the Kool-Aid that we should never have drunk.

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Too many criminals are sent to prison and punishing them in public instead could be more effective, the Bishop of Liverpool said today.

The Right Reverend James Jones, the Anglican bishop for prisons, said it was simply not enough to lock up criminals.

He added that community payback schemes could act as a deterrent for others and help to reduce reoffending.

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Santa, as usual, was a no-show at the Men’s Central Jail.

In his place Sunday came three presumably wise men ”” Archbishop Jose Gomez, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and Sheriff’s Capt. Ralph Ornelas, making their way down long, dimly lit rows of cellblocks to dispense Christmas cheer. At least, as much as was possible in a place where one day is pretty much like the last.

“Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad!” Gomez proclaimed over and over as he walked down the line of narrow, cramped cells, trailed by volunteer carolers. At each cell, he slipped through the bars a copy of “Tattoos on the Heart,” a book of modern parables by Father Gregory Boyle, the Jesuit founder of Homeboy Industries in East L.A.

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Newcastle Anglican Bishop Brian Farran is calling for major reforms to the New South Wales prison system, saying the imprisonment rate is unacceptably high.

He will raise the issue in his opening address at the 50th Synod of the Anglican Diocese, which gets underway at Maitland Town Hall this morning.

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The rising number of prisoners serving costly life terms across the country is complicating state officials’ efforts to make dramatic cuts to large prison budgets, lawmakers and criminal justice officials said.

From 1984 to 2008, the number of offenders serving life terms quadrupled, from 34,000 to roughly 140,000, according to the most recent count by The Sentencing Project, which advocates alternatives to incarceration.

One of the fastest-growing subgroups are inmates serving life without the possibility of parole. Those numbers have jumped from 12,453 in 1992 to 41,095 in 2008 and represent the most costly inmates to house as the aging inmates require increased medical care.

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A decision by Ohio officials to remove all pork products from prison menus in response to a lawsuit by Muslim inmates is not sitting well with the state’s pork producers and processors.

Both promise action of their own, including a possible counter lawsuit, to address what they consider an unfair and illogical decision.

“We really think it’s not in the best interest, frankly, of the whole prison system,” said Dick Isler, executive director of the Ohio Pork Producers Council. “It seems like we’re letting a small group make the rules when it really isn’t in the best interest of the rest of prisoners.”

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The ministry called Joseph’s Promise, inspired by the…scriptures, cannot be explained without introducing William, an inmate at Lieber Correctional Institution, who received a life sentence two decades ago. Many years ago, William gave his life to Christ and has since faithfully served as a Chaplain’s assistant at Lieber.

A few years ago Tom Blazer, a member of Church of the Holy Cross, Sullivan’s Island, renewed his relationship with William, his boyhood friend. at some point William told tom that he was troubled by what happened to
inmates’ remains when they died.

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In the two months since North Carolina’s legislature laid off most of its prison chaplains, Betty Brown, director of prison chaplaincy services, has been crisscrossing the state searching for volunteers who can attend to the religious needs of Native American, Wiccan and Rastafarian prisoners.

State legislators had assumed volunteer ministries would jump in and help prisoners meet the ritual and devotional needs of their faiths. But so far, that hasn’t happened.

“It’s been tough locating volunteers for those faith groups,” said Brown, whose department lost 26 full-time prison chaplains as part of an effort to close a $2.6 billion state budget gap.

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The number of inmates returning to state prisons within three years of release has remained steady for more than a decade, a strong indicator that prison systems are failing to deter criminals from re-offending, a new study has concluded.

In one of the most comprehensive reports of its kind, the Pew Center on the States found that slightly more than four in 10 offenders return to prison within three years, a collective rate that has remained largely unchanged in years, despite huge increases in prison spending that now costs states $52 billion annually.

National recidivism, or return, rates are holding steady even as state officials have launched programs to help prisoners re-enter society and as the recent financial crisis has forced states to cut their budgets and re-evaluate the types of offenders who should return to prison.

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When Ronnie writes of prisoners who “have given up,” who “are waiting to die” or who “just want to die,” he knows well of whom he is speaking. With equal confidence, the inmate of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution writes, “The good news is that Jesus doesn’t give up on any of these people. Nor should we.”

Ronnie’s brief reflection on John 17, including his personal journey of more than 40 years to discover “Jesus is love; Jesus is real,” is part of the 2011 Lenten Devotional published by Christ United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tenn. Fifteen current and former inmates of the maximum-security prison wrote more than half of the entries in the booklet. The rest came from church staff members and other sources.

Karen Vander Molen, a church member active in prison ministry, and the Rev. Mark Price, minister of spiritual formation, coordinated the project. It began as Price was considering who might write the Lenten devotional.

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The Church of England has welcomed the analysis and policy proposals in the Ministry of Justice Green Paper Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders, December 2010.

The analysis and policy proposals ‘represent an honest recognition of some of the fundamental weaknesses in our current methods of dealing with offenders, and offer bold and far-reaching suggestions for improvement,’ the Church’s Mission and Public Affairs Council says in its response to the Green Paper.

The Council endorses the Green Paper’s plans for more use of properly-designed community sentences, diversion of mentally ill people from prison and more intensive concentration on effective rehabilitation of offenders through integrated services provided by the voluntary sector in partnership with statutory organisations.

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LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: This is a reentry program for inmates about ready to be released back to their communities. It’s funded by the state of Hawaii and the social ministry of the Catholic Archdiocese of Honolulu. Angela Anderson is one of the fortunate participants. She’s been serving time for drug abuse.

ANGELA ANDERSON: When I had got out of jail before, you know, I went directly back to drugs, because that’s really all there was. But here I got structure. I made great friends. You have classes that you have to attend to. You have to live to a schedule.

SEVERSON: What it does is lessen the odds that she’ll go back to prison. In 2009, the latest statistics available, there were 2.3 million Americans serving time behind bars, the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. Since the early 1970s, the prison and jail population has increased by 700 percent. Now, faced with the staggering costs of incarceration, about $55 billion a year, politicians are asking community and faith-based volunteers to help the reentry process for the hundreds of thousands of ex-cons who are coming home. The state of Hawaii is no exception….

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We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

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There has been a lot of speculation about whether Jared Lee Loughner, the man arrested for the Arizona shooting, has a severe mental illness. But is mental illness a sufficient explanation for his actions? Recent research has found that mental illness is, in fact, tied to an increased risk of violence””but it is not a simple relationship….

…the vast majority of patients with severe mental illness are not violent during their lifetimes. The largest and longest study of schizophrenia and violence, conducted in Sweden over the course of 30 years, found that only 13% of patients had violent convictions after receiving their diagnoses. For most patients, the risk of becoming a victim of violence is higher than the risk that they will commit violence.

Nor should we make the mistake of assuming that a correlation between mental illness and violence somehow establishes a causal connection between them. It may be that schizophrenia is simply a marker for other factors that increase the risk of violence. Of these factors, one of the strongest is alcohol and drug abuse. Estimates from the U.S. indicate that around half of patients with schizophrenia also have problems with substance abuse. One study in American urban centers found that nearly a third of patients who were discharged from the hospital and also diagnosed with substance abuse were violent within one year.

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Jesus Christ was born in a humble stable because there was no place for him at the inn. And later, according to Christian scripture, Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt with the baby, seeking refuge from King Herod’s decree to kill all newborns.

That was the Christmas tale Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski presented Saturday to 150 undocumented immigrants at the Krome detention center, using the Bible narrative as a metaphor for the immigrants’ travails.

“We are sure Joseph was not delayed trying to obtain a visa to cross the border,” said Wenski, who officiated at an emotional Mass in Spanish, English and Creole. “That is why we can say that Jesus was a refugee and an undocumented immigrant.”

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Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley was just out of seminary when his friary sent him to serve as chaplain at the Butler, Pa., county prison. His first task was to preach to the inmates, but he had never given a sermon before, much less to such a tough crowd. He consulted his preaching textbook, which advised: “Speak into the horizons of your congregation.’’

Inspired, O’Malley gave a lively account of the Bible’s great escape stories: Daniel and the lion’s den, St. Paul escaping over the walls of Damascus in a basket, St. Peter in chains. The inmates listened, rapt.

“The problem was, that night, several prisoners escaped from the prison,’’ O’Malley said with a laugh during a recent interview. “And I was afraid my first sermon was going to be my last. The superior was very unhappy.’’

O’Malley went on to become a well-regarded homilist; in a quieter way, he has also continued ministering to prisoners….

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When Jermaine Robinson got out of Rikers Island jail last March, he had nowhere to live and few real prospects for finding a job. But he did have something that would prove almost as valuable: The address of the storefront Harlem office where Getting Out and Staying Out operates.

“Without them, I wouldn’t have gotten where I am right now,” 23-year-old Robinson says.

The nonprofit, founded by retired cosmetics executive Mark Goldsmith six years ago, has helped some 1,500 young men incarcerated at Rikers chart new lives.

Only about 20 percent of those who go through the program return to prison, compared with nearly 60 percent for Rikers as a whole.

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Mr. Fisher, who is African-American, was arrested in upstate New York and returned to Oklahoma, where he pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. He faced execution if convicted, a prospect that, records show, his well-respected lawyer did little to avoid.

The lawyer, E. Melvin Porter, a civil rights advocate and the first African-American elected to the Oklahoma State Senate, later said that at the time he considered homosexuals to be “among the worst people in the world,” and Mr. Fisher to be a “very hostile client.”

Mr. Porter was shockingly ill-prepared for trial ”” “unwilling or unable to reveal evident holes in the state’s case,” a federal appellate court later noted, yet “remarkably successful in undermining his own client’s testimony.” He exhibited “actual doubt and hostility” about his client’s defense, the court said, and failed to present a closing argument, even though the state’s case “was hardly overwhelming.”

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Tradition holds that St. Peter was jailed in Rome’s maximum security Mamertine Prison before he was crucified upside down and buried on the hill where St. Peter’s Basilica was later built.

And now after recent excavations in Rome’s oldest prison, archaeologists say they have uncovered evidence that, while not providing direct proof, does support that belief.

The prison, which lies beneath the Church of St. Joseph of the Carpenters facing the Roman Forum, was closed for the past year as experts dug up old floors and picked away plaster.

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IN 2000 four Americans were charged with importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than cardboard boxes, in violation of a Honduran regulation that Honduras no longer enforces. They had fallen foul of the Lacey Act, which bars Americans from breaking foreign rules when hunting or fishing. The original intent was to prevent Americans from, say, poaching elephants in Kenya. But it has been interpreted to mean that they must abide by every footling wildlife regulation on Earth. The lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law. Yet three of them got eight years apiece. Two are still in jail.

America is different from the rest of the world in lots of ways, many of them good. One of the bad ones is its willingness to lock up its citizens…. One American adult in 100 festers behind bars (with the rate rising to one in nine for young black men). Its imprisoned population, at 2.3m, exceeds that of 15 of its states. No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free. The rate of incarceration is a fifth of America’s level in Britain, a ninth in Germany and a twelfth in Japan.

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Inmates are converting to Islam in order to gain perks and the protection of powerful Muslim gangs, the Chief Inspector of Prisons warns today.

Dame Anne Owers says that some convicted criminals are taking up the religion in jail to receive benefits only available to practising Muslims.

The number of Muslim prisoners has risen dramatically since the mid-1990s ”” from 2,513 in 1994, or 5 per cent of the population, to 9,795 in 2008, or 11 per cent. Staff at top-security prisons and youth jails have raised concerns about the intimidation of non-Muslims and possible forced conversions.

Dame Anne’s report, Muslim Prisoners’ Experiences, published today, says that, although several high-profile terrorists have been jailed recently, fewer than 1 in 100 Muslim inmates have been convicted of terrorism.

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Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president, has given a nod to the Roman Catholic Church’s desire to play a larger role in solving the communist-run island’s problems, possibly opening the way for the release of political prisoners, leading prelates said, in what experts and diplomats termed his most significant political move since replacing his brother Fidel in early 2008.

Mr Castro met for more than four hours with Cardinal Jaime Ortega and Bishop Dionisio Garcia of Santiago de Cuba, the head of the Conference of Bishops. The last such meeting took place five years ago when Fidel Castro was still in power.

By the weekend the government had informed the church that the prisoners would be moved from far-off locations to jails in their home provinces, and any ill inmates to hospital, according to dissidents and church sources.

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Evangelicals are calling on the Obama administration to enact long-promised prison reforms, saying the incarcerated deserve protection from violence and rape.

In 2003, former president George W. Bush signed the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which aimed to lower the estimated 13 percent of inmates sexually assaulted each year.

The bill called for the Department of Justice to research prison rape and requires prisons to establish prevention programs.

Now, the National Association of Evangelicals is urging the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission to follow up on the standards proposed.

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Columbia, South Carolina–Tony Dungy stood before more than 1,700 prisoners Tuesday, sharing a smile and message of hope that has become his life’s work.

The former NFL championship coach said he recently visited an inmate in Florida that he had ministered to nearly 10 years ago. The prisoner thanked Dungy for changing his mental and spiritual outlook.

“That,” Dungy said, “was a bigger thrill for me than winning the Super Bowl.”

Somehow wonderfully appropriate on Holy Week. Read it all.