Incarcerated but Free

Incarcerated but Free PDF Author: Monique Pettaway-Ray
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9781462027378
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
Six months after newlywed Monique Pettaway-Ray landed her first teaching job as an eighth-grade science instructor in Huntsville, Alabama, her world suddenly imploded. Her husband was convicted for murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. A vital part of her life was ripped from herand Monique didnt know how to cope. Deeply honest and heartfelt, Incarcerated but Free shares how Monique broke the bars of her mental prison, forged an incredible faith in the Lord, and embarked on a path to help families of incarcerated individuals find hope and healing. Monique explores the doubts, fears, and perplexities that often accompany those who have a loved one in prison, and shares the coping strategies she developed to combat each challenge. Monique uses biblical passages to emphasize the important role God played in her journey, and includes questions for meditation and reflection at the end of each section. From overcoming shame to dealing with anger and frustration, Moniques helpful, compassionate voice offers encouragement for those suffering from their own form of incarceration. A unique blend of memoir and self-help, Incarcerated but Free offers faith-filled inspiration to bring light to your darkest days.

Incarcerated but Free

Incarcerated but Free PDF Author: Monique Pettaway-Ray
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9781462027378
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book

Book Description
Six months after newlywed Monique Pettaway-Ray landed her first teaching job as an eighth-grade science instructor in Huntsville, Alabama, her world suddenly imploded. Her husband was convicted for murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. A vital part of her life was ripped from herand Monique didnt know how to cope. Deeply honest and heartfelt, Incarcerated but Free shares how Monique broke the bars of her mental prison, forged an incredible faith in the Lord, and embarked on a path to help families of incarcerated individuals find hope and healing. Monique explores the doubts, fears, and perplexities that often accompany those who have a loved one in prison, and shares the coping strategies she developed to combat each challenge. Monique uses biblical passages to emphasize the important role God played in her journey, and includes questions for meditation and reflection at the end of each section. From overcoming shame to dealing with anger and frustration, Moniques helpful, compassionate voice offers encouragement for those suffering from their own form of incarceration. A unique blend of memoir and self-help, Incarcerated but Free offers faith-filled inspiration to bring light to your darkest days.

The Second Chance Club

The Second Chance Club PDF Author: Jason Hardy
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1982128607
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A former parole officer shines a bright light on a huge yet hidden part of our justice system through the intertwining stories of seven parolees striving to survive the chaos that awaits them after prison in this illuminating and dramatic book. Prompted by a dead-end retail job and a vague desire to increase the amount of justice in his hometown, Jason Hardy became a parole officer in New Orleans at the worst possible moment. Louisiana’s incarceration rates were the highest in the US and his department’s caseload had just been increased to 220 “offenders” per parole officer, whereas the national average is around 100. Almost immediately, he discovered that the biggest problem with our prison system is what we do—and don’t do—when people get out of prison. Deprived of social support and jobs, these former convicts are often worse off than when they first entered prison and Hardy dramatizes their dilemmas with empathy and grace. He’s given unique access to their lives and a growing recognition of their struggles and takes on his job with the hope that he can change people’s fates—but he quickly learns otherwise. The best Hardy and his colleagues can do is watch out for impending disaster and help clean up the mess left behind. But he finds that some of his charges can muster the miraculous power to save themselves. By following these heroes, he both stokes our hope and fuels our outrage by showing us how most offenders, even those with the best intentions, end up back in prison—or dead—because the system systematically fails them. Our focus should be, he argues, to give offenders the tools they need to re-enter society which is not only humane but also vastly cheaper for taxpayers. As immersive and dramatic as Evicted and as revelatory as The New Jim Crow, The Second Chance Club shows us how to solve the cruelest problems prisons create for offenders and society at large.

Incarcerated But Free

Incarcerated But Free PDF Author: Monique Pettaway-Ray
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1462027393
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Six months after newlywed Monique Pettaway-Ray landed her first teaching job as an eighth-grade science instructor in Huntsville, Alabama, her world suddenly imploded. Her husband was convicted for murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. A vital part of her life was ripped from her and Monique didn't know how to cope. Deeply honest and heartfelt, Incarcerated but Free shares how Monique broke the bars of her mental prison, forged an incredible faith in the Lord, and embarked on a path to help families of incarcerated individuals find hope and healing. Monique explores the doubts, fears, and perplexities that often accompany those who have a loved one in prison, and shares the coping strategies she developed to combat each challenge. Monique uses biblical passages to emphasize the important role God played in her journey, and includes questions for meditation and reflection at the end of each section. From overcoming shame to dealing with anger and frustration, Monique's helpful, compassionate voice offers encouragement for those suffering from their own form of incarceration. A unique blend of memoir and self-help, Incarcerated but Free offers faith-filled inspiration to bring light to your darkest days.

When You Hear Me (You Hear Us)

When You Hear Me (You Hear Us) PDF Author: Free Minds Writers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781950807345
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
When You Hear Me (You Hear Us) is an anthology of poetry and personal stories centering the voices of those directly impacted by the incarceration of young people in the United States. Compiled by Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop, this rich collection includes firsthand accounts from both the young people charged and incarcerated in the adult criminal legal system and from the community at large: the mothers, the loved ones, the correctional staff, public defenders, prosecutors, and others harmed and left with unhealed trauma. These critical voices, uniquely combined, illustrate the ecosystem that surrounds youth who are incarcerated--and expose the ripple effects that touch us all. This book challenges us to hear these voices calling out for accountability, transformative justice, and healing. Together, they demonstrate the collective impact of the prison system, and our collective responsibility to create a society where every one of us can thrive.

The Untold Story of the Real Me

The Untold Story of the Real Me PDF Author: Free Minds Writers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781945434327
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
The Untold Story is a collection of poetry and profiles written by incarcerated youth. Many poets are currently incarcerated in the DC Jail or federal prison; profiles are of returned citizens and their quest for new life. Their work explores themes of parenthood, love, pain, identity, race, and freedom in voices both raw and powerful.

Free Cyntoia

Free Cyntoia PDF Author: Cyntoia Brown-Long
Publisher: Atria Books
ISBN: 1982141115
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Biography/Autobiography In her own words, Cyntoia Brown-Long shares the riveting and redemptive story of how she changed her life for the better while in prison, finding hope through faith after a traumatic adolescence of drug addiction, rape, and sex trafficking led to a murder conviction. “Those...years in prison hadn’t just turned me into woman. They transformed me. The girl who desperately wanted to belong, who felt powerless, who clawed, and scratched her way out of every corner she was backed into, was gone.” At the age of sixteen, Cyntoia Brown, a survivor of human trafficking, was arrested for killing a man who had picked her up for sex. Two years later, she was sentenced to life in prison. Brown reflects on the isolation, low self-esteem, and sense of alienation that drove her straight into the hands of a predator. Once in prison, she attempts to build a positive path and honor the values her beloved adoptive mother, Ellenette, taught her, but Cyntoia succumbs to harmful influences that drive her to a cycle of progress and setbacks. Then, a fateful meeting with a prison educator turned mentor offers Cyntoia the opportunity to make the pivotal decision to strive for a better future, even if she’s never freed. In these pages, Cyntoia shares the details of her transformation, including a profound encounter with God, an unlikely romance, an unprecedented outpouring of support from social media advocates and A-list celebrities, and her release from prison. A coming-of-age memoir set against the shocking backdrop of a life behind bars, Free Cyntoia takes you on a spiritual journey as Cyntoia struggles to overcome a lifetime of feeling ostracized and abandoned by society.

They Called Me 299-359

They Called Me 299-359 PDF Author: Free Minds Writers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781950807154
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
They Called Me 299-359 is a poetry anthology written by incarcerated youth of Free Minds. Through moving personal testimony, these young writers explore the challenges of incarceration as well as family, forgiveness, redemption, and dreams.

This Is Not My Life

This Is Not My Life PDF Author: Diane Schoemperlen
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 1443434221
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
From the Governor General’s Award winning author of Forms of Devotion, Our Lady of the Lost and Found and By the Book “Never once in my life had I dreamed of being in bed with a convicted killer.” For almost six turbulent years, award-winning writer Diane Schoemperlen was involved with a prison inmate serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. The relationship surprised no one more than her. How do you fall in love with a man with a violent past? How do you date someone who is in prison? This Is Not My Life is the story of the romance between Diane and Shane—how they met and fell in love, how they navigated passes and parole and the obstacles facing a long-term prisoner attempting to return to society, and how, eventually, things fell apart. While no relationship takes place in a vacuum, this is never more true than when that relationship is with a federal inmate. In this candid, often wry, sometimes disturbing memoir, Schoemperlen takes us inside this complex and difficult relationship as she journeys through the prison system with Shane. Not only did this relationship enlarge her capacity for both empathy and compassion, but it also forced her to more deeply examine herself.

Halfway Home

Halfway Home PDF Author: Reuben Jonathan Miller
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316451495
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
A "persuasive and essential" (Matthew Desmond) work that will forever change how we look at life after prison in America through Miller's "stunning, and deeply painful reckoning with our nation's carceral system" (Heather Ann Thompson). Each year, more than half a million Americans are released from prison and join a population of twenty million people who live with a felony record. Reuben Miller, a chaplain at the Cook County Jail in Chicago and now a sociologist studying mass incarceration, spent years alongside prisoners, ex-prisoners, their friends, and their families to understand the lifelong burden that even a single arrest can entail. What his work revealed is a simple, if overlooked truth: life after incarceration is its own form of prison. The idea that one can serve their debt and return to life as a full-fledge member of society is one of America's most nefarious myths. Recently released individuals are faced with jobs that are off-limits, apartments that cannot be occupied and votes that cannot be cast. As The Color of Law exposed about our understanding of housing segregation, Halfway Home shows that the American justice system was not created to rehabilitate. Parole is structured to keep classes of Americans impoverished, unstable, and disenfranchised long after they've paid their debt to society. Informed by Miller's experience as the son and brother of incarcerated men, captures the stories of the men, women, and communities fighting against a system that is designed for them to fail. It is a poignant and eye-opening call to arms that reveals how laws, rules, and regulations extract a tangible cost not only from those working to rebuild their lives, but also our democracy. As Miller searchingly explores, America must acknowledge and value the lives of its formerly imprisoned citizens. PEN America 2022 John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist Winner of the 2022 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences 2022 PROSE Awards Finalist 2022 PROSE Awards Category Winner for Cultural Anthropology and Sociology An NPR Selected 2021 Books We Love As heard on NPR’s Fresh Air

The Free Incarcerated Man

The Free Incarcerated Man PDF Author: Ann Marie Turner
Publisher: WestBow Press
ISBN: 1664206469
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
The Free Incarcerated Man is a labor of love written specifically for men living in a prison population. With no hesitation it proclaims God still loves such men. Even the man who may have done a most heinous crime, perhaps believing no one could ever forgive him or still love him is wrong. In this book that man who lives behind iron bars and wants to truly be released from bondage will read of biblical truths which, when embraced and applied, can teach him to realize there is hope and forgiveness, mercy and healing even for him... The Free Incarcerated Man is testifying to the truth of the love of God and the Church has for those many reject. It extends across the world to all who have fallen short and sinned. Within this book are contained a great number of Scriptures from the Bible, God’s Word. The testimonies of prisoners in the Bible, itself, testifies that a man is absolutely able to be thankful to the God who created him; for that God has always wanted him; wanted him as His son!