"Most of them were bleeding, and we did nothing to stop the bleeding"
—Phil Moore
"Having a close family member who has been incarcerated is more common than any of us had anticipated"
—Christopher Wildeman, Cornell University
"Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts."
--E. B. White
The prejudice of race looks a lot like religious prejudices against Jews and Muslims today...
"The link between academic failure, violence, and crime
is welded to reading failure" --The Department of Justice
Studies show that 66% of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Like so many things in life, one event, one experience that happened or didn't, can change a life. When learning to read well didn't happen, that life is at risk.
"All things are difficult before they are easy." —Thomas Fuller, African Slave 1710-1790
Thomas Fuller was 14 years old when he was taken from his native West African home and sold to a Virginia planter. We have no record of what he experienced during this time, outside of the sure knowledge that his life of freedom had turned to one of suffering and difficulty. But, Thomas had a gift...
"Members of Congress serving on [Senate and House Finance committees] have collectively received over $3.4 million from the payday lending industry." —OpenSecrets
For many years we have worked with other groups who fight for fair treatment of those who need small short-term loans. "Payday" loans unfairly punish those with few resources in general, but...
"Prisons are woefully ill-equipped for their current role as the nation's primary mental health facilities." —Jamie Fellner
Jamie Fellner is senior counsel for the United States Program of Human Rights Watch, which often deals with issues of the maltreatment of prisoners in the U.S.These are generally episodes against an incarcerated individual in a singular situation. But today with U.S. prisons and jails overflowing with a growing population of people with mental illness...
"Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell." —Charles Thomas Studd
Charles Thomas Studd was born in Great Britain in 1860, and as he grew, he became a star cricket player in a game that was the premier sport in England. They called him C.T. and he was not only famous, he became in that era, a kind of a sports rock star, like Manning, Mantle, or Brady...
"Ruin is the road to transformation." —Elizabeth Gilbert
Do we park at the point of our pain? Or do we try again? When Larry Bird's father committed suicide, he was lost. He tried college but couldn't deal with it, so he went back home and became a garbage collector. When Oprah Winfrey was sexually assaulted at age 10 and pregnant at 14, losing the child shortly after birth, the pain and hopelessness were overwhelming...
"There's a difference between remorse and repentance. Remorse is being sorry for being caught. Repentance is being sorry enough to stop." —Greg Laurie, Author, The Jesus Revolution
Who among us could not apply this statement to our own lives? Greg Laurie, who wrote about his life in the book and new movie, The Jesus Revolution, is pastor of one of the largest churches in the U.S. It was a small production effort that became a blockbuster at the box office. Laurie was raised by an alcoholic mother who married seven times...
