Dramatically improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of prisoners and their families

Our criminal justice system is broken.  We lock up way too many people in awful conditions; we generally don’t help them rehabilitate and heal; our prisons seem to drain the life out of inmates and train them in new forms of criminal behavior; and the majority of those released commit more crimes and return to prison.  Today we're joined by James Ackerman, the President and CEO of Prison Fellowship – the nation’s largest outreach working to improve the lives and futures of prisoners, former prisoners, and their families.  Prison Fellowship is active in 449 U.S. prisons and jails and offers intensive year-long programs in 76 of those facilities across 23 states.  The non-profit estimates that it serves 25,000 prisoners each month, and impacts 200,000 unique inmates per year.  Prison Fellowship also operates the Angel Tree program where volunteers purchase and deliver Christmas gifts on behalf of parents who are incarcerated, providing gifts to 291,000 children last year alone.