Seeing God’s Movement Towards Redemption in Isaiah 11

“The wolf will romp with the lamb, the leopard sleep with the kid. Calf and lion will eat from the same trough, and a little child will tend them. Cow and bear will graze the same pasture, their calves and cubs grow up together, and the lion eat straw like the ox. The...

What I Took from ‘The New Jim Crow’

Did you think that Jim Crow ended in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act? Think again. Michelle Alexander argues in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness that racism is so pernicious that it doesn’t go away. It just changes form.In this book,...

A Daily Prayer for Justice and Mercy

  Jesus, united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Give us your compassion for those in prison. Mend in mercy the broken in mind and memory. Soften the hard of heart, the captives of anger. Free the innocent; parole the trustworthy. Awaken the repentance that...

The Ancient Issue of Reentry

When the Israelites began their return from exile in Babylon to their native Jerusalem in the 6th century B.C., many of those who returned wept out of sorrow rather than joy. These men and women were overwhelmed by the fact that their homeland, Jerusalem, and the...

Mass Incarceration in the USA

Do you need a crash course on mass incarceration in the United States? Take a few minutes to watch the video below. Organizations like Redemption Housing are necessary because our prison systems, by and large, exist to punish rather than rehabilitate. This one of...

The Harsh Realities of Returning Citizens

Meet John, a lifelong Philadelphian. John completed his ten-year prison sentence last week, and with only the clothes on his back and a paper bag carrying his few personal belongings, John walked to the train station to purchase a ticket “home.” As a typical returning...

Top 5 Myths about Sex Offenders

As a society, we fear and despise those returning citizens who have been convicted of sexual offenses. We don’t want them near our schools or in our neighborhoods. Employers won’t offer them jobs, so they often find themselves living on the streets. Redemption Housing...