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    Beauty for Ashes: Prison Ministry for Women
    Beauty for Ashes: Prison Ministry for Women
    Beauty for Ashes: Prison Ministry for Women
    Ebook42 pages36 minutes

    Beauty for Ashes: Prison Ministry for Women

    By Helen Ellis

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    About this ebook

    One of the commands of our Lord Jesus is, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel". All the world includes the prisons. It is a huge and largely underserved mission field. I endeavor to shed light on the mission field of prisons, delve into statistics on women in prison and share the nuts and bolts of the ministry the Lord has given me. The US incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 residents and that's more than any other nation in the world. Christian ministries can and must address the despair, hopelessness and recidivism that keeps these women in a revolving door of prison to community then back to prison. I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ can provide transformational change in every life. The word of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit, can address the deepest needs of human beings: needs for significance, love and acceptance. This population is comprised of women who have been abused, broken and wounded. They have made poor choices that led to their incarceration. Whatever their background issues or crime, we are there to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ, share the love of God and minister the word of God -- the Bible.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHelen Ellis
    Release dateFeb 13, 2017
    ISBN9781370039678
    Beauty for Ashes: Prison Ministry for Women
    Author

    Helen Ellis

    Helen Ellis is the author of Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge, Bring Your Baggage and Don’t Pack Light, Southern Lady Code, American Housewife, and Eating the Cheshire Cat. Raised in Alabama, she lives with her husband in New York City. She is a poker player and a plant lady. You can find her on Twitter @WhatIDoAllDay and Instagram @AmericanHousewife.

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      Book preview

      Beauty for Ashes - Helen Ellis

      The Statistics

      TO BROADEN OUR UNDERSTANDING, it may be helpful to obtain an overview of US incarceration statistics for women. These numbers are exploding. Per the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, incarceration rates in the US remain at record levels. More than 2.2 million Americans are held in state and federal prisons or local jails. The US incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 residents and that’s more than any other nation in the world. A miniscule 5% of the world’s female population live in the US, but the US accounts for nearly 30% of the world’s incarcerated women.{Prisonpolicy.org/global/women}

      Incredibly, across the globe, the 25 jurisdictions with the highest rates of incarcerating women are all American states. Thailand, at number 26, is the first non-US state to appear on this high-end list, followed closely at number 27 by the US itself. The next 17 jurisdictions are also American states. Nearly 30% of the world’s incarcerated women are in the United States, twice the percentage as in China and 4 times as much as in Russia. {PPO}

      Putting US states in a global context is sobering; even the US states that have comparatively low rates of incarceration far exceed many the world. For example, Illinois incarceration rate for women is on par with El Salvador, where abortion is illegal and women are routinely jailed for having miscarriages. Rhode Island has the lowest incarceration rate in the US, but it still has a rate more than twice that of Portugal, which has the 2nd highest rate of incarcerating women among founding NATO nations. Nationally, the US incarcerates women at a rate 8 times higher than Portugal. {PPO}

      Many experts have noted racial bias throughout the criminal justice system. Though about 13% of Americans are African American, more than a third (36%) of inmates in state and federal prisons are African American (US Department of Justice). These statistics and others, lend credence to concerns about the high number of black inmates and charges of racial bias. In 2014 the imprisonment rate for African American women (109 per 100,000) was more than twice the rate of imprisonment for white women (53 per 100,000). Additionally, Hispanic women were incarcerated at 1.2 times the rate of white women {64 vs. 53 per 100,000}. On a positive note, the rate of imprisonment for African American women has been declining since 2000, while the rate of imprisonment for White women continues to rise. Between 2000 and 2014 the rate of imprisonment in state and federal prisons declined by 47% for African American women, while the rate of imprisonment for White women rose by 56%. {Prisoners Series, Washington, DC, Bureau of Justice Statistics.}

      In actual number, there are many more men than women in prison. As of 2012, there were 1,461,625 men in prison. In 2014, The Sentencing Project lists 215,332 women under correctional control in jails, state and federal prisons. They also list 966,029 women on probation and 102,825 on parole. This is equal to 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system. However, the imprisonment

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