jail

Will Young 12-19-2018

The day before Adam Ward was slated to be executed, he sat in a visitation booth at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas with Rev. DeAnna Golsan, a woman he had never met before. During the months prior, the two — Golsan, a Texan pastor who believed in the merit and morality of the death penalty, and Ward, a man who was sentenced to death — had become unexpected pen pals after being connected by Ward’s mother, an attendee of Golsan’s church. Golsan felt she knew him well, yet, upon meeting Ward, she was forced to confront that the 33-year-old soft-spoken man who cared mostly about his mother was somehow slated for death.

Shane Claiborne 3-03-2017

Shane Claiborne and others are arrested on the steps on the Supreme Court, Feb. 2017

Law enforcement shackled us with chains on our hands, waist, and feet, and held us in jail for more than 30 hours. While we were there, the government that imprisoned us for holding a banner executed Ricky Gray. It does raise the question of what is right and what is wrong, doesn’t it?

the Web Editors 12-15-2015

Image via  / Shutterstock.com

A new study from the Vera Institute of Justice suggests that mass incarceration, typically focused in urban centers, is growing fastest in suburbs and rural areas.

The U.S. already has a massive imprisonment problem — despite having 4 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. And now, the problem is spreading beyond cities. In 2014, densely-populated counties had 271 inmates in jail per 100,000 people, whereas sparsely-populated counties had 446 inmates per 100,000 people — nearly double the amount.

The Editors 8-12-2015

Poet Ambassadors / Photo courtesy of Free Minds

The Forgiveness

By Steven

I forgive my dad for walking out on his only son
I forgive the people who think they get over
When they assume that I’m dumb
I forgive life for dealing me this hand
I forgive my inner boy for not becoming a man
I forgive the man who bumped me
Because he couldn’t see
I forgive ...
But I can’t forgive everything
Because I’ve yet to forgive me ...

Steven is an active member of the Free Minds Book Club.

the Web Editors 7-16-2015
Image via Nebojsa Markovic/Shutterstock

Image via /Shutterstock

A 28-year-old black woman driving from Naperville, Ill., to Prairie View, Texas, for a job interview ended up dead in jail, ABC7 reports.

Sandra Bland was pulled over in Waller County, Texas, for failing to signal while changing lanes. Video footage from the scene of the arrest shows two police officers restraining her on the ground, then taking her into custody. Three days later she was found dead in her jail cell. Police say her death appears to be self-inflicted.

According to ABC7:

In a press release from the sheriff's department, authorities say they applied CPR, but Bland was pronounced dead shortly after she was found.

"I do not have any information that would make me think it was anything other than just a suicide," says Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis.

Bland's friends disagree.

...Longtime friend LaNitra Dean tells the I-Team that Bland "was a warm, affectionate, outspoken woman" who spoke out about police brutality often on her Facebook page and was critical of injustice against African Americans.

..."The Waller County Jail is trying to rule her death a suicide and Sandy would not have taken her own life," Dean said. "Sandy was strong. Strong mentally and spiritually."

Texas State Rangers are now handling the investigation. Read the full story here.

Maria Bowler 6-08-2015

CHRIS HOKE’S Wanted isn’t a spiritual memoir in the sense of chronicling revelation over time, and while Hoke, as his own character, grows through the book, he isn’t tracking the movements of his own soul. Wanted recounts the moments in Hoke’s life as a pastor and friend to prisoners, migrant workers, and gang members when something else broke in. Whether or not it intends to, Wanted is a way of answering the question that plagues a lot of contemporary spiritual writing: What does spiritual mean, anyway? Outside the religious patterns we already know, how would we recognize it?

Hoke goes looking, and finds himself drawn to a jail in Washington’s Skagit Valley as an unofficial chaplain, leading Bible studies and hanging out with the men who soon request his visits. Many of them listen to the stories where Jesus dines with the people society rejected and ask if that could mean them too.

Kimberly Winston 1-22-2014

Volunteers Bill Boulden, left, and Jim Oliver, write letters to prisoners. Photo: Sarah Kaiser, Center for Inquiry Via RNS

Leslie Zukor was a 19-year-old student at Reed College studying prison rehabilitation programs when something jumped out at her.


“Not all prisoners are religious, and I wanted them to know that to turn your life around and be a good and productive member of society does not require a belief in God,” she said. “I just thought, wow, it is time to see about getting other perspectives in there.” While there were programs tackling drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse, technical training, and more, all of them were offered by faith-based organizations. Where were the options for those behind bars who are atheists, like her?

So Zukor launched the Freethought Books Project, collecting books about atheism, humanism, and science and sending them to interested prisoners. She estimates that since her first book drive in 2005, she has given out 2,300 books, magazines, and newspapers to perhaps hundreds of prisoners across the country.

Betsy Sholl 3-14-2013

Blindfolded and gagged, tossed in the back
of a car—it's how they gather up young men
and after tire irons and chains, leave some

lying in the road like dirt, rained on all night.
Some are bundled-up, tossed off a bridge
into the river whose muddy swirls warn:

kick, fight, breathe, twist your arms free.
Some do. They rise, spit out the rags
stuffed in their mouths, limp back to town,

and one begins to sing—slow at first— Lord,
I want to be in that number
... Another moans
a low muted tone where words won't go.

Elaina Ramsey 2-12-2013

Viridiana Martínez

The Obama administration is not living up to its promises. Sign a petition to put an end to low-priority deportations.

Jeanne Bishop 10-11-2012
Prison photo, luxorphoto / Shutterstock.com

Prison photo, luxorphoto / Shutterstock.com

What struck me as he spoke was the sheer human potential of this my client, wasted. That matters for all of us because of an unflinching Scriptural text about how we can enter the kingdom of God: “for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me….just as you did it to the least of those who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matt. 25:35-40)

That’s the test. Not beliefs or intentions. Actions. 

Specific actions: Jesus tells us to visit people considered the worst among us, those accused of breaking the law. 

It’s not just innocent prisoners we are to see; it’s prisoners. They are all Jesus. 

QR Blog Editor 7-02-2012

From WOAI-TV in San Antonio, Texas:

She's been living on the streets to bring attention to homelessness, but Sunday night a local pastor stayed behind bars.

The Rev. Lorenza Andrade Smith had a warrant out for her arrest, because she was cited for sleeping on a park bench, which she says proves her point, that the homeless have few places to lay their heads. Along her journey the pastor has discovered what she calls an unjust judicial system for the poor.


She said, “This will be the second time I’m in jail for that same ticket and I’m just trying to survive out in the streets like hundreds of others here in San Antonio.”

QR Blog Editor 6-13-2012

According to CNN:

ATLANTA, Ga. – With a calm voice and collected manner about her, a 15-year-old girl called Fayette County 911 to report that her father assaulted her. The call led police to the suburban Atlanta home of megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar and ultimately resulted in a night behind bars on Friday.

The audio from the phone call was released Tuesday.

“I just got into an altercation with my father. He punched me and threatened to choke me,” the girl told a 911 dispatcher. “Um, this is not the first time that this has happened. I feel threatened by being in this house. Um… I don’t know, I don’t know what can be done. But I’m scared, I’m shaking.“

Dollar publicly denied punching or choking his teenage daughter during Sunday service at World Changers International Church, but in the police report, he admitted emotions ran high very early Friday morning and he attempted to “restrain” his daughter when she became “disrespectful.”

In the 911 tapes, the teen explained to the dispatcher that her father attacked her because of grades and a dispute about a party that she wanted to attend.

Read more HERE.

Jim Wallis 9-30-2010

Glenn Beck can do better. Fox News can do better. When it comes to upholding truth and having civil dialogues, let's be honest, we all can do better.

Charlton Breen 5-10-2010
Psalm 94 is not my psalm, and perhaps it's not yours either. Psalm 8; Psalm 23; Psalm 100. They get a lot of air time because they really speak to us.
Duane Shank 5-07-2010
Professional sports and political issues have traditionally remained separate. But the new immigration law in Arizona is closing that divide.
Matthew Soerens 3-12-2010

Pastor Walter is experiencing firsthand the effects of a broken immigration system. Walter migrated to the United States from Colombia when he was young, petitioned by his parents, who were Lawful Permanent Residents. Walter's parents wanted for their son to enjoy the opportunities that the United States had to offer.

Eileen Mignoni 3-10-2010

"John came from Acapulco, Mexico, three years ago. He was 15. He enrolled in high school and excelled. He learned English quickly and made his father proud.