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Today, we explore the surprising vitality of faith among the incarcerated, how Prison Fellowship’s Academy cuts recidivism by over 50%, and the urgent need for restorative justice in the United States with Heather Rice-Minus, President and CEO of Prison Fellowship.

Want to get involved? Discover opportunities at https://prisonfellowship.org/ or participate in the Prison Fellowship Angel Tree ministry this Christmas through a local church in your area.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.

Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us Heather Rice-Minus. Heather is the President and CEO of Prison Fellowship. Welcome, Heather.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Thank you so much for having me.

Marlin Detweiler:
It is great to have you here. I have never been closely connected to Prison Fellowship. What's it called? Project Angel. What's the Christmas?

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yes. Angel Tree present.

Marlin Detweiler:
Angel Tree. Thank you. We have been involved and participating in that at churches that we've been a part of over the years. But maybe before we jump in, tell us a little bit about your education, your family, and how your career led you to this point.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yes. Well, you know, if you had asked me when I was a young person, would I have imagined working for a prison ministry? And the answer would have been no. But I started out wanting to pursue a career in law, and I actually was double majoring in pre-law and social work in my undergrad. And then I spent a year abroad in East Africa teaching English and volunteering in orphanages.

Oh, well, that was a really pivotal year in my spiritual formation. I would say, and came back to the states to pursue law school at George Mason's Scalia Law School in Arlington just outside DC. I met my husband my second year of law school. We were married after I graduated.

Marlin Detweiler:
And because he had a practicing lawyer.

Heather Rice-Minus:
No, he's not. Yes. He's a social worker actually by background. And then we have. So about my third year into law school, I was working part time for a small nonprofit that had opened a policy portfolio into prison conditions. And you know, I had thought I was going to go to law school to pursue a law degree to work on child welfare adoption issues.

Foster care was very near and dear to my heart. And when I was trying to look for a part time job during law school, nothing opened up in that space. And so I landed at this other organization and was working on prison conditions. And honestly, Marlin, I had not given the issue much thought.

Marlin Detweiler:
And so if we're not right on the inside, so to speak.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Exactly. You know, there's a recent study out that says 1 in 2 Americans have or had a family member who has been incarcerated. So it's a very pervasive problem. But for myself, I had grown up in the suburbs. I had not had that experience and so had just not given it much thought. And I began to study and research it and see how many people we hold in prison.

You know, the United States has 4% of the world's population, 19% of the world's prisoners. And I became overwhelmed with the numbers and also the conditions that I was studying as well and working on in terms of legislation. And so that's what really made me passionate about it from a faith perspective. And so began to think, maybe this is where God would want me to use my law degree.

And I began to work in coalition with Prison Fellowship because although Prison Fellowship is known for, as you mentioned, our Angel Tree program that serves children of the incarcerated, our in-prison programs that bring about an opportunity for people to step into new life in prison. They also have a small public policy team that does work on justice reform.

And so I began to work with that team and was really drawn to the organization and the opportunity to now work for this issue. I had grown passionate about it, but from my own faith perspective. And so I joined Prison Fellowship's public policy team after I graduated law school and was with the ministry over a decade before my predecessor, James Akerman, began looking for who might succeed him.

And so I think he saw some potential in me before I did and started giving me more and more opportunities to develop, assigned me our then board chair as my leadership coach and I was given more and more opportunity to learn more parts of the ministry, fundraising, church mobilization, more time spending in prison with our programs. And I was voted unanimously by the board to succeed him.

Marlin Detweiler:
Congratulations.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Thank you. Yes. And then stepped officially into that role just about two years ago.

Marlin Detweiler:
Two years ago, meaning toward the end of 2023.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yep. January 2023.

Marlin Detweiler:
Very good. Well, coming up on three years. Yes. Last spring were recorded.

So, did you say January 2024? Yes. Okay. So how did how long did you work with the organization before stepping into the role here in

Heather Rice-Minus:
I started in January 2013.

Marlin Detweiler:
Okay. So it's been quite a while. Yeah. Now I'm aware and I'm not sure how much of our audience would be, but I'm aware that the organization start was started by Chuck Colson. That's right. One of the hatchet men of the Nixon administration. Tell us a little bit about the starting to give some people a younger generation so to speak some context for the ministry.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yes. So as you mentioned, Chuck Colson, you know, was in the 70s known to be the hatchet man for President Nixon. He served in the White House. He was implicated in the Watergate scandal. And even though he felt the charges specific charges brought against him were not accurate, he did feel he had contributed to the culture that led to Watergate.

And so he ended up pleading guilty. And it was actually during that time period of the trial and just the chaos that surrounded it that he began to really explore faith. And he actually had a friend, a businessman who had recently become a Christian. And he just thought that that was so odd and he reached out to him and just thought, you know, here's this hard, you know, tough business guy I know as a friend and he's become a Christian, you know, what's that about?

And so he, in the midst of this Watergate scandal, he drives over to his house, asks him about all these questions about faith. He actually reads to him for his friend does from C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well.

Heather Rice-Minus:
And he asks him, you know, if he wants to accept Jesus. And Chuck, you know, thinks, well, you know, I really got to read more. I've got to make sure I fully understand what this is all about. And he says in his memoir Born Again, which I highly recommend to those listening as a good read.

It's really quick, but it's very riveting. And he gets into his driveway, the driveway of his friend's house, and he just can't leave. And he is overcome with emotion and prays to accept Jesus in his car. And I think even that decision is in part what motivated him to plead guilty because he did feel he had contributed to the world and all and felt that that was the right thing to do as now a new believer.

And then interestingly, you know, this Christian community in Washington really came around him. He actually had, you know, hard to believe now, but a bipartisan group of members of Congress who was

Marlin Detweiler:
Was some of that related to the ministry of what we call the Fellowship House?

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yes. Yeah, exactly. So he had different members of Congress who were praying over him, offering to take care of his family while he was inside. And so he ended up spending seven months in federal prison in Alabama. And it was during that time that not only, you know, the church outside, as I mentioned, these members of Congress and so forth cared for him, looked out for his wife Patty and his kids.

But he also met men inside prison and at Prison Fellowship, based on what Chuck used to say, we actually call those who are followers of Jesus in prison the church inside. And they also came around him. And so he met these men who were following Jesus in prison. And he developed a community inside that he did not expect.

And they saw healings. They had just incredible times of prayer. They saw prayers answered while they were inside. And so his faith was really strengthened through that process. And he really developed a heart for those in prison, which, you know, as he began to study scripture more and more, he saw this is actually the heart of God is to remember those in prison as it calls us to do in Hebrews, calls us to visit those in prison, right in Matthew 25.

And so he getting out of prison promised the men inside he wouldn't forget them. And, you know, some were skeptical. Some inside said, hey, we've seen politicians in here before and they forget us once they're out. But Chuck stayed true to his promise. So in 1976 he founded Prison Fellowship. And I know from his writings and I've been looking back at some of the early documents about Prison Fellowship that he never expected it to have grown to what it is today.

We're going to be celebrating in 2026 our 50th year anniversary. So have been around for 50 years and reaching more prisoners, more people, more families impacted by incarceration than ever before.

Marlin Detweiler:
Is that geared to the US population or is there some international emphasis today?

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yes. So Prison Fellowship that he founded originally in 1976 has remained focused on the United States. But then in 1979 he actually started Prison Fellowship International. Okay. The separate 523. But we continue to be strategic partners. Just hosted their board for a visit here in the US to see one of our programs this fall.

And so they act as kind of an association and each country can develop its own Prison Fellowship. So there's over 100 countries worldwide that have Prison Fellowship. And they're each autonomous, but the brand and kind of networking aspect comes from Prison Fellowship International.

Marlin Detweiler:
So what was the emphasis of Prison Fellowship when it started and how has it grown and morphed in those 50 years?

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yes. So the emphasis I would say has largely remained the same in that our mission today is to encounter Jesus with those impacted by incarceration. And that was the starting point. But I will say, you know, some of the strategies and tactics have certainly changed over time. In fact, you know, I'm amazed and somewhat shocked by some of the things Chuck was able to pull off in the early days.

He actually had a program where he would bring federal prisoners who were currently incarcerated to Washington, DC for internships, which I just can't imagine them allowing today. But you know, today we have programs, really intensive programs in hundreds of prisons across the country. And our most intensive program is called the Prison Fellowship Academy, and it has about 500 hours of curriculum that the men or women who are participating go through.

We teach biblically based values, everything from integrity to community to restoration. And this program has actually been studied independently by departments of corrections. And in fact, the Texas Department, their most recent study that they've done takes a match group of people with similar criminal history. And so, you know, we really want to see are people just joining our program who are ready to change.

And we're getting kind of the easy pickings. Right? Or you know, does this program really work? And so they match our participants with participants with the same criminal history and they study their recidivism rates, the rate at which they come back to prison compared to the match group. And they found that our participants had a 50 over 50% reduction in recidivism compared to our matching.

Well so this word gospel at work, the gospel at work. And so we know it's working in terms of people coming to encounter Jesus. And we also know it's working in practical terms of communities being safer. Yeah.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well there's a statement that I don't know if it's attributed to you or not. You'll be able to tell us, but it's the whole idea that somebody probably said at one point, we need to bring the gospel. We need to bring God into the prisons. Yeah. And the statement was, God's already here.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yeah.

Marlin Detweiler:
That really struck me when I read that. Tell us how that came about. What is it that we're trying to you're trying to communicate here.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Right? You know, I don't know if he's the first person to say it but the person I would hear that from and have taken it on board from is Dan Kingery who oversaw our correctional programs at Prison Fellowship for many, many years. And you know, his point is that a lot of times people come in to volunteer in prison and we believe, oh, you know, no one in prison knows Jesus.

So this open mission field and I've got to come in and kind of save people. Right. And bring Jesus to prison. And he kind of chuckles and says, you know, the surprising thing because he started out, you know, really as a volunteer himself in the decades ago. And he said, you know, I was surprised to find Jesus was already there and doing quite well.

And it's so true. I find it to be true for myself. Every time I go into prison, you know, there's this incredible hunger for God among people who have really hit rock bottom, you know, and they know the need that they have for God. I think a lot of times in the outside free world we're very distracted.

Right? We've got all this technology and we tend if you ask most people, you know, are you going to heaven? Your average American will just say, sure, I'm a good person. Right? Well, when you go to prison, you've got some challenges to that statement, and you start to really wrestle with your humanity. Right? And your sinful nature.

And so the desperation and understanding and hunger for God in prison is truly unique. And you find that people are so devoted to the Lord when they come to that place of wanting to follow after Jesus. And you'll also see the spiritual disciplines in prison are amazing. There's a story I like to tell of visiting prison a couple of years back, and I had a friend come with me who hadn't visited prison before.

And when we got out of the bus, she said, can I bring my Bible in? And I said, sure, of course. And she comes back to me on the bus on the way home and is just like, clearly moved and kind of thrown. And she says, you know, I brought my Bible in thinking I would share the gospel tonight.

And I sit down at the table with the participants next to me. He brought his Bible, and we both open our Bibles and are talking. And here mine is clear pages. And his is underlined, highlighted. He's got notes in the margin. And you know, the prophecies in the Old Testament to the testimony in Jesus in the New Testament.

She said, you know, he sees revelations from the pages of Scripture every day. And here I am, a pastor's daughter, having taken for granted many of the passages that we discussed. So, you know, I say all the time, if you want to see Jesus alive and well, let me take you to prison. Right.

Marlin Detweiler:
That is really incredible. This is probably a good time for this question. Give us some insights into the life of a prisoner. Most of us have not experienced what it's like to be in prison directly or through somebody that we're really close to.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Right?

Marlin Detweiler:
To talk to it. Tell us what it's like as we say on the inside.

Heather Rice-Minus:
On the inside? Yeah. Well let me just start. If you even think about the intake process to go into prison, you're going to be stripped of your clothes. You're going to be fingerprinted. I've had friends who probably never imagined that they'd be spending the night in jail. And a swab of their mouth is taken. Right?

DNA sample and you might be put in a holding cell. You might be surrounded by people who have mental illness. You might be waiting to make a phone call. And you know, be very anxious. And then you know, if you get a prison sentence and you know, the distinguishing factor between being held in jail is that you're there pretrial often.

And you might stay in jail if you have a conviction that lasts less than a year. But if you get a sentence of over a year, you're transferred to a prison, usually in the United States. And in that place, you know, you're going to be wearing whatever the issue of clothing is, right? A uniform you're going to receive an inmate number.

And so the dehumanization that people experience is often quite profound. The food usually is not too great. And, you know, just a couple months ago, we were hosting a event in prison with some ladies in our Prison Fellowship Academy program in Oklahoma. And we had some breakfast food and fruit and whatnot that everyone was able to partake in.

And the woman next to me who was incarcerated leans over and she she's eating a bagel and she says, I haven't had cream cheese in 12 years. This is amazing. And so you think, like, you know, all the little things that we take for granted, whether it's the food we eat, the clothes we get to wear, and then also your physical freedom is come and your decision making your agency is completely gone.

So imagine, you know, you're told what time you wake up, you're told, you know, to report to a job. You're told when to sleep, you're told when to eat. And in prison, we tend to say, you know, it's a bit of a pressure cooker of all that is wrong with society. So in many prisons, you'll see people sort of gather by racial group and gang affiliation sometimes.

And so a lot of times you see the things that exists out in society but just at the forefront in prison of people sort of, you know, segregating in this kind of fashion. And so a lot of times people will be looking for where can I find some level of protection and belonging in this place that can be dangerous.

Yeah. And that's the really unique thing about, for example, the Prison Fellowship Academy is that we gather people of all different colors, all different backgrounds, all different offenses, and they form this really beloved community that you would not expect in prison. It stands out the prison.

Marlin Detweiler:
And correct me if I'm wrong and I'm coming up with this off the top of my head. Yeah. As far as I understand, the prison system is intended to punish and to correct. Is that a good way to describe what it's intended to do?

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yeah. You know, I think different states and systems like the first, the first thing I'd say is it's quite confusing because we really have, you know, over 50 criminal justice systems because you have each state, each the federal system, each one might have a different mission statement. And so I see different systems reflect different purposes. Some people say, you know, coming to prison in and of itself is the punishment.

I'm not going to make the environment punishment further. You know what I mean? And so what I want to do with folks time here is to help them rehabilitate and step out of prison, you know, better than they came in. But there are systems that reflect sort of a punitive mindset as well even during that time. So it can really depend.

Marlin Detweiler:
What does it work? Does the system do what it intends to do? And I understand that's a hard question to answer if you've got 50 different.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Right.

Marlin Detweiler:
Ways it's being carried out or maybe a few less than that. But the point is that there's not uniformity, right? Does it work?

Heather Rice-Minus:
So I would say on the whole no. I think, you know, one other potential in terms of rehabilitating people on the whole no. We know that the recidivism rates over 50% okay for most people on average. However, you know, you do see these pockets of things that are working. So the Prison Fellowship Academy and the success that we're having.

Right, is an example of that. So there are other programs as well that are seeing people step into new life, even people with very serious offenses. But, you know, a third sort of purpose, if you will, is also deterrence. And so, you know, the time people spend behind bars, you know, might be for the safety of others.

And so that's time, you know, they're not out in the community. But people also miss that prison is a community. And, you know, the crimes that occur in prison are still crimes and people are still harmed inside as well. And also we have a program at Prison Fellowship we developed about a decade ago called the Prison Fellowship Warden Exchange.

And we've actually graduated over 800 correctional leaders from this program. They bring transformational leadership skills and they also try to reimagine prison and think about how can I promote moral rehabilitation in my prison? How can I, you know, help corrections staff to see themselves as brokers of change, agents of change, and help the incarcerated, you know, do the same.

And so that program has given me a lot of hope. And it's it's really incredible to see people who have stepped into that profession wanting to be agents of change. And there are some pretty remarkable systems across the country that are working to do that. And where you do see people being successful upon release.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. The question I'm going to ask you two questions next. And because I'm afraid that one of them might be a very long answer or it might be an answer that you're uncomfortable with. So one question, the easy one is, where are you taking prison fellowship? Where do you see your leadership taking it along with that which might be related?

It might not be, but what would you do if you were in control of the prison system in terms of or maybe even the legal system as it relates to crime in terms of change?

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yeah. So where am I taking prison fellowship? Well, the vision for prison fellowship is actually revival of the church inside and outside prison to bring justice, mercy and hope to our culture. And I want to just highlight that you know, this is a God sized vision. It's not going to happen unless God is behind it because it's pretty radical to say that we believe, you know, that prison fellowship has a role to play in revival of the church, both inside and outside prison.

And going back to our conversation earlier, Marlon, about you want to see Jesus alive and well. I want to take you to prison. I just so see God on the move when we bring local congregations into community with the church inside, and I am inspired by the people I bring to visit, are inspired when they see what God is doing in the lives of people who you know, might be considered forgotten, might be considered among the worst of the worst.

Right. And people come away challenged in their own faith. And so prison fellowship, you know, where I want to take us is more proximity between local congregations and the church inside and also more proximity with those who have been impacted by incarceration, including families. As we know, there's a lot of families sitting in our pews today who have a loved one behind bars.

And so Prison Fellowship Angel Tree is a great way to do that. And you know, in terms of what I would like to see change or what I would do, for one, I would say some of the correctional leaders I see in the warden exchange are, you know, reaching for the right things which are we want prison to be a place that improves your likelihood of being a good citizen when you return.

And I think, you know, having correctional leaders see the humanity in people in prison and vice versa. And I think creating as much opportunity for positive prison culture and programing as possible is really important. But it has to go beyond that because the work that we do on the public policy front is one looking at sentencing and alternatives to incarceration.

You know, we tend in the United States to think, okay, you've committed a crime, you go to prison. And we don't have much creativity in terms of other thoughts of what that could look like. And so we see a lot of promise of things that especially for those who have committed crimes to think about the harm that they've caused to others, restorative justice programs where you actually engage the victim of your crime if they want to engage in helping shape what your accountability looks like.

Marlin Detweiler:
Restorative justice, would that include some forms of restitution then?

Heather Rice-Minus:
Sure it could. And there's also some programs where actually the person who's committed the crime and the victim of the crime meet together and talk about, you know, what? What can I possibly do to help make this right? And so those programs are rare in the United States. They tend to be geared more towards you.

But they are used in other countries like New Zealand more broadly. And I think that there's a lot of benefit to that because I think a lot of times people go to prison and think, you know, I I've been wronged by the state and don't really see the personal connection of the crime and harm that they've cost.

And so, you know, that's something I would love to see more of. I'd also love to see more proportionality in our sentencing. You know, we give people sentences today, you know, for far longer terms than we did for the same crimes decades ago. And we've just kind of grown used to that. That that's okay for someone to get ten, 15 years for something that used to get 2 or 4.

Well, that's a lot of birthdays of your kids. To me that's a lot of life to be, you know, to be institutionalized and then to expect people to come home and be successful is unrealistic. And then you know, when we're in prison, we want people to have the opportunity for rehabilitation. And then the other thing I would say is when you get out of prison, we've started a prison fellowship talking about the second prison because sometimes you get home and you think, okay, I've served my time, I paid my debt, and then you can't find a job and then you can't get housing.

And then you're not welcome places because of your criminal history. And so several years ago we started in 2017 celebrating April as Second Chance Month to raise awareness about this and to really, you know, help people to see the amazing stories of people who have come home and contributed to society. We actually asked churches to start hosting Second Chance Sundays during April and to preach on this message and to encourage their congregations to be a place of welcome.

So we have a whole toolkit that helps churches do that. So those are some of the things I would look for are more proportional and alternative sentencing, constructive and rehabilitative prison culture and more of a culture of second chances in society at large, but especially in our churches.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, we've run out of time, but I have to ask you one more question. Okay.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Yes.

Marlin Detweiler:
Might our listeners get involved?

Heather Rice-Minus:
I love that question. Well, certainly. There's lots of ways to get involved. I would encourage people to come to Prison Fellowship.org and check out the volunteer opportunities. Sign up for our newsletter. And you know, every Christmas time is a great time for people to sign up for prison fellowships Angel Tree. It's a program that's near and dear to my heart.

I've had extended family be the recipients of it, and I've also been a prison fellowship Angel Tree coordinator at my own church and have just been blessed getting to know families in my own neighborhood here in Washington DC that way. And so I would encourage you to sign up for Prison Fellowship Angel Tree Program, get your church engaged in serving children who have an incarcerated parent to receive a gift on their mom or dad's behalf.

And you actually attach a note that's from the parents application in prison. And so that gift is on behalf of mom or dad remembering them. And you can also tell them, well, guess what? Not only does your mom or dad remember you, your heavenly father remembers you. And it's just a beautiful, a beautiful program that hope. And hopefully it's not just about a present but a ministry of presents.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Heather, thank you so much for what you're doing for talking to us about it. And folks, thank you for joining us. This is really something. Thank you for your work.

Heather Rice-Minus:
Thank you so much for having me folks.

Marlin Detweiler:
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of Classical Christian Education. We hope to see you next time.