Criminal Justice Insider

06/28/2021

06/27/2021

Expanded Voices: The Great 8. Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 1pm. The Legacy Theater. Box Office: (203) 315-1901
Email: [email protected]
The Legacy Theatre, Inc., 128 Thimble Islands Road, Stony Creek, CT 06405

Live on stage a dramatic series of eight stories will be inter twined to raise awareness and provoke thought...

Join us for an afternoon of hard truths, human struggle and heartwarming accounts of life after incarceration told by eight individuals recently inducted into a CT museum for their extraordinary transformation and contributions to CT communities. This unique first in the Nation program will take the audience behind the scenes of eight individuals whose life’s stories began as the cliché of urban existence but ends in tremendous success through inner strength and support of a re-entry community.

2021 Special Events Sunday, July 11, 2021at 1pmExpanded Voices: The Great 8Live on stage a dramatic series of eight stories will be inter twined to raise awareness and provoke thought...Join us for an afternoon of hard truths, human struggle and heartwarming accounts of life after incarceration told...

06/19/2021

Guest Blog: The Perfection Syndrome, by Fellow Traveler Basia Skudrzyk. https://prisonist.org/guest-blog-the-perfection-syndrome-by-fellow-traveler-basia-skudrzyk/. Basia Skudrzyk is a member of our online White Collar Support Group that meets on Zoom on Monday evenings.

When a reporter asked Thomas Edison, “How did it feel to fail 10,000 times? Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 10,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 10,000 steps.”

Great success is built on failure, frustration and even catastrophe.

Although we strive for perfection, no one ever gets there. Perfection is subjective and each person has his or her own view as to what constitutes perfection...

06/18/2021

06/16/2021

Jeff Grant & Craig Stanland will be guests on Tha Yard Weekly Hangout, Thurs., June 17, 2021, 8 pm ET, 5 pm PT. Please join us!

Link to register: https://prisonist.org/fellow-travelers-jeff-grant-craig-stanland-will-be-guests-on-tha-yard-weekly-hangout-thurs-june-17-2021-8-pm-et-5-pm-pt/

Reinvention doesn’t happen overnight. But if you want to learn where to start, meet Craig Stanland and Jeff Grant, powerhouses of new beginnings:

📖 Craig Stanland served 2 years in prison, and upon release, was 100% dedicated to transforming himself (and helping others do the same) – now a coach and bestselling author, he specializes in working with people whose lives have fallen apart, helping them reinvent themselves.

⚖ After serving 14 months in prison, Rev. Jeff Grant became the co-founder of Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc., as well as a private general counsel serving families, the white collar justice community, pro bono clients and more. He’s helped hundreds of men and women find new beginnings post-incarceration.

Raw, real and uncut – join us on Tha Yard this week for another episode of epic conversations, untold stories and good times.

Please join us: Thursday, 6/17
5pm PST/8pm EST
Link to register: https://prisonist.org/fellow-travelers-jeff-grant-craig-stanland-will-be-guests-on-tha-yard-weekly-hangout-thurs-june-17-2021-8-pm-et-5-pm-pt/

06/10/2021

Amazon Smile: Progressive Prison Ministries is now a participating nonprofit in the Amazon Smile program so that, at no cost to you, we will receive a donation of 1/2% of your purchases. Thank you for using this link to register:

When you shop at AmazonSmile, Amazon will donate to Progressive Prison Ministries Inc. Support us every time you shop.

06/09/2021

Washington Post: Federal prisoners hold $100 million in government-run accounts, shielded from some criminal scrutiny and debt collection.

Federal prison inmates are keeping large sums of money — in some cases more than $100,000 each — in government-run deposit accounts effectively shielded from court orders for things like child support, alimony or other debts, and not subject to the same scrutiny as accounts owned by non-incarcerated citizens, according to court documents and interviews.

Within the Bureau of Prisons system, which houses roughly 129,000 inmates in facilities throughout the United States, there are more than 20 inmate accounts holding more than $100,000 each for a total exceeding $3 million, a person familiar with the program told The Washington Post. In all, the combined value of such inmate accounts recently topped $100 million, this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the program that have remained out of public view.

The program run by the Bureau of Prisons has long frustrated law enforcement officials, who say it poses significant risks for abuse, money laundering and corruption, yet the agency has for years resisted efforts to change it.

06/05/2021

Just Released, by Jeff Grant: The Story of My Release from Prison 14 Years Ago Today, June 5, 2007. An Excerpt from My Book, “Down & Out in Greenwich CT.

https://prisonist.org/just-released-by-jeff-grant-the-story-of-my-release-from-prison-14-years-ago-today-june-5-2007/

"In Alexis’ car with Tom behind the wheel, all the sights, road signs, the rate of speech, ambient radio noise – just about everything – were coming at me way too quickly. I wanted to stay in the back seat and just be quiet for a while. And to acclimate, hide – do anything other than be with people who couldn’t possibly understand what I had just been through. But Tom and Peter would have none of that. They were excited. They had driven 200 miles to come get me. They had stayed overnight in a fleabag motel and eaten cheap fast food. To them this was Tom & Peter’s Excellent Adventure – and they wanted the pay-off. They wanted to know everything, and they wanted it immediately. I asked them to please settle down and to find the highway. And to hand me a cell phone. I wanted to check my voice mail messages – it had been almost fourteen months. I wanted to call my kids.

Five hours seemed like a lot of time to get from White Deer, Pennsylvania to Hartford, Connecticut, more than enough time to stop and have a nice lunch along the way. It had been awhile since I’d had a nice lunch, and I figured that would be the place to catch up with Tom and Peter, share stories about the last year, and answer all of their prison questions. I was soon to learn that I was now considered the “prison guy”, with all the good and the bad that came along with it. Peter had the route all mapped out on MapQuest just in case the directions given to us by the prison turned out to be wrong. He was satisfied that five hours should be enough for lunch. As it turned out, I was not so much in the mood for a nice lunch as I was to not take any chances checking into the halfway house on time. The risk didn’t seem to be worth it."