Who doesn’t like to hear–and tell–heart-warming stories of character transformation! Well, Chaplain Angela has one to tell that has helped her learn how to pray for the inmates when she cannot see them weekly as before the pandemic.

While you are praying for the world, please include inmates in our State prisons and county jails in your daily prayers. And as always, we encourage you to give us your thoughts about this video in our comments section and to share this video with your family and friends.

Who doesn’t need an uplift right now? Take a few moments and listen to our newest video. Then share it with family and friends. Also, consider sharing your thoughts in the “comment box” under the video–you may just make someone’s day!

Remember, your prayers are the antidote the world needs.

Take a few moments to listen to this timely and uplifting video–and if you like, pass it on to your family and friends.

Remember, your prayers are the antidote that’s needed right now. And by all means, if you’ve got thoughts that might help others, please share them.

Join us in prayer regarding the issue of juveniles in solitary confinement.

From the National Council of Church’s statement on this issue:

The National Council of Churches applauds President Obama’s order banning the use of solitary confinement for juvenile offenders in the federal prison system. This ban comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling that its 2012 decision banning mandatory life sentences for juveniles can be retroactively applied. We are particularly excited about this steady movement of reform that impacts juveniles and see these decisions as important steps toward creating a more humane and moral criminal justice system.

“This gives us great hope in our efforts to transform the broken criminal justice system from one focused on punishment and retribution to one focused on rehabilitation and restoration,” said Rev. Aundreia Alexander, Associate General Secretary for Action and Advocacy for Justice and Peace.

While we welcome the new restrictions on the use of solitary confinement to 60 days (down from a previous limit of 365 days), we question if this limit is still too long.

We invite you to pray about this issue and then take appropriate action if your prayers lead you to do so.

Click here to read the National Council of Church’s full statement

Click here to read President Obama’s Op-Ed on why we must rethink solitary confinement

We just published an interview with Chaplain Brian about a diagnosed and treated mentally ill inmate he had been seeing for the past 8 years. This particular inmate is no longer being treated for mental illness after studying Christian Science in prison and working with Chaplain Brian.  There are literally tens of thousands of inmates in the system who are not so fortunate.

The complete report will take a little while to read — and is hard to stomach.  But Stanford Law School’s “Three Strikes Project” has published an in-depth look at this problem that describes in detail the problems facing the system, including investigating causes and potential solutions.

We can no longer ignore the massive oppression we are inflicting upon the mentally ill throughout the United States. Over a century ago, Dorothea Dix began a movement to improve the deplorable conditions of mentally ill prisoners. Despite her success in changing the country’s perception and treatment of the mentally ill in prison, we are now right back where we started in the nineteenth century. Although deinstitutionalization was originally understood as a humane way to offer more suitable services to the mentally ill in community-based settings, some politicians seized upon it as a way to save money by shutting down institutions without providing any meaningful treatment alternatives. This callousness has created a one-way road to prison for massive numbers of impaired individuals and the inhumane warehousing of thousands of mentally ill people.

We have created conditions that make criminal behavior all but inevitable for many of our brothers and sisters who are mentally ill. Instead of treating them, we are imprisoning them. And then, when they have completed their sentences, we release them with minimal or no support system in place, just counting the days until they are behind bars once again. This practice of seeking to save money on the backs of this population comes with huge moral and fiscal cost. It is ineffective because we spend far more on imprisonment of the mentally ill than we would otherwise spend on treatment and support. It is immoral because writing off another human being’s life is utterly contrary to our collective values and principles.

The numbers are staggering: over the past 15 years, the number of mentally ill people in prison in California has almost doubled. Today, 45 percent of state prison inmates have been treated for severe mental illness within the past year. The Los Angeles County Jail is “the largest mental health provider in the county,” according to the former official in charge of the facility.

Please take the time to download and read their report (22 pages, PDF), and give this your prayerful support.

PDF report: http://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/child-page/632655/doc/slspublic/Report_v12.pdf

Dear Friends,

I spoke with Rev. Ivan Vorster, the Sheriff’s Chaplain at the Santa Barbara County Jail two weeks ago, and told him about our new “Adopt a Prison” program. He was very interested in our prayerful support and had an immediate request for help:

“Please help stop the fighting among the female inmates. As a result of fighting the jail has had to suspend many religious services.”

This fighting is keeping chaplains from being able to visit and conduct services. Please consider taking a few moments each day this month and specifically pray for a speedy resolution. Rev. Vorster will report back to us in May with a progress report.

Thank you so much for being a part of Light in prison prayer support team.

If you have any inspiring thoughts you’d like to share on this topic, please leave a comment below!

Sincerely,

David Fowler, Editor
LightInPrison.org
Healing our prisons and those in them

The disease, called the “silent epidemic”, known as “cocci”, became less silent last week when a federal judge ordered the state to transfer about 2,600 vulnerable inmates — including some with H.I.V. — out of two of the valley’s eight state prisons, about 90 miles north of here. In 2011, those prisons, Avenal and Pleasant Valley, produced 535 of the 640 reported inmate cocci cases, and throughout the system, yearly costs for hospitalization for cocci exceed $23 million.

Advocates for prisoners have criticized state agencies for not moving the inmates sooner. “If this were a factory, a public university or a hotel — anything except a prison — they would shut these two places down,” said Donald Specter, the executive director of the Prison Law Office.

Please share how you are praying:

Yes, there are lots of contributing issues, and the task for those willing to pray for God’s solution is more immediate than to debate the issues or affix blame.

Please share your insights and ideas about how you’re praying:

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