Prison Fellowship

This article is about the United States organization. For the International umbrella organization, see Prison Fellowship International.

Prison Fellowship

Founder(s)	Chuck Colson
Founded	1976
Location	Washington D.C, United States
Key people	Jim Liske, President and CEO
Focus	Prison outreach
Motto	Changing Lives, Minds, and Communities through Jesus Christ
Website	http://www.prisonfellowship.org/

Prison Fellowship is a Christian prison outreach and criminal justice reform organization. Its programs reach prisoners, ex-prisoners, and families of prisoners throughout the United States and, through Prison Fellowship International (PFI), in 112 countries worldwide.

Leadership

Charles W. Colson founded Prison Fellowship in 1976 after spending 7 months in prison for obstruction of justice and becoming a born again Christian. In 2002 Mark Earley became the organization's chief executive officer. In 2006 Michael T. Timmis (chairman of PFI since 1997) succeeded Colson as chairman of the board.

Mission

Prison Fellowship targets the root causes of crime by applying the principles of restorative justice (restoring criminals, victims, and the community) through comprehensive, faith-based programs. These programs include in-prison programs (mentoring, educational training, biblical training), Operation Starting Line (in-prison high profile evangelism), ex-prisoner transitional care (church-based aftercare and mentoring), InnerChange Freedom Initiative (full-time Christian prison programs), and Angel Tree (reaching half a million prisoners' children through a Christmas outreach, Christian camping, and mentoring).

Angel Tree

Angel Tree is a program of Prison Fellowship that reaches out to the children of inmates and their families with the love of Christ. It seeks to transform the lives of these families and to reconcile them to their Heavenly Father and each other. In Matthew 18:5 Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me”. An estimated 1.5 million children have at least one parent in prison. Angel Tree provides an opportunity to connect with those families through a variety of year-round ministry opportunities with an emphasis on Christmas time gift giving.

Operation Starting Line

Operation Starting Line (OSL) is a network of national, regional and state ministries and organizations working together to support prisoners, their families and the prison community through evangelism, discipleship and collaboration. The collaboration presently includes ministries and organizations that vary in size and focus, lending resources and expertise to both Operation Starting Line and America’s prisons. Operation Starting Line began as “Project Macedonia” in North Carolina. Aaron Johnson, Secretary of the Department of Corrections, invited Prison Fellowship to bring revival to the prisons of North Carolina. Its success opened the way in 1992 for Prison Fellowship to take in-prison evangelistic programs called “Starting Line” across the nation. This evolved into Operation Starting Line in 2000 as other ministries joined Prison Fellowship in ministering to prisoners. Since 2000, over 700,000 prisoners have been reached through OSL. The mission of OSL is “to seek the transformation of prisoners and their reconciliation to God, family and community through the power and truth of Jesus Christ. We operate as a collaborative network of ministries working together for greater impact.”

InnerChange Freedom Initiative

The InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) is a proven, voluntary and holistic values-based Reentry Program. It seeks the development of the whole person – spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. The spiritual formation aspect of the program is based on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. IFI was started by Prison Fellowship in 1997. In 1999, IFI became a separate 501(c) (3) and now contracts with Prison Fellowship for staffing and support services. IFI operates in prisons in cooperation with the state. The state continues to provide food, clothing, shelter and security to the inmates while IFI staff provides the intensive program. This mission of IFI is to create and maintain an environment where change may take place and to foster respect for law and the rights of others. IFI's unique plan of restoration and progressive programming begins 18 to 24 months before an inmate is released. The program continues for an additional 12 months of mentoring and support once the inmate has returned to the community. Inmates volunteer for the program and must meet several criteria before they are accepted. IFI stresses personal responsibility, the value of education and work, care of persons and property and the opportunity for a new life. IFI is not a prison, but provides programming for prisoners to help them transform their lives and re-enter society successfully.

Justice Fellowship

Justice Fellowship is the criminal justice reform arm of Prison Fellowship. Justice Fellowship works with key state and federal policymakers to reform the criminal justice system according to the principles of restorative justice found in the Bible. In some jurisdictions, Justice Fellowship advances a single piece of legislation. In other places, our approach is more comprehensive as we look at system-wide solutions to the problems of crime. Our work sometimes places us in an advisory or technical assistance role to an official commission on some criminal justice subject.

Wilberforce Forum

The Wilberforce Forum is a conservative Christian political and social think tank and action group particularly active in the promotion of Intelligent design in education and in biotechnology and bioethics issues, such as human cloning and stem cell research. It describes itself as the "Christian worldview thinking, teaching, and advocacy arm of Prison Fellowship." It is named after William Wilberforce a British parliamentarian and leader of the campaign against the slave trade. It was founded in 1991 by Chuck Colson. The Prison Fellowship presents an annual award, "The Wilberforce Forum Award".

External links

• PFM
• Prison Fellowship
• Turner, Allan. "Evangelist group plans to visit every prison in nation Evangelists targeting inmates Group plans to visit each prison in the nation in the next six years." Houston Chronicle. Saturday October 2, 2004.