Spend Your Life in Prison

 

 

Listening to the men in the short Opinion Video above is like encountering visitors from another planet. They are serving life sentences at Angola prison, in rural Louisiana, with little to no hope for release. Many are elderly; they have not seen the outside world, or their families, for decades. They do not face execution, but they have been sentenced to death all the same, their lives spooling out endlessly on the cellblock and in the cotton fields, then ending in a prison hospice bed. The men are among the thousands in Louisiana — and more than 50,000 nationwide — locked up for life without parole. It costs roughly

America's elderly prisoner boom

 

In America some 2.2 million people are behind bars, and the prisoners are getting older. The number of people over the age of 65 who were in prison has doubled since 2007. In fact, aging men and women are the most rapidly growing part of America's prison population. In part, this is the hangover effect of the 1980s and 90s when a perfect storm of high crime rates and tough sentencing laws caused prison populations to soar. Phillip Burdick is 64. He works alongside Mr Baxter in a program called the Gold Coats. The volunteer inmates who become Gold Coats are carefully screened and shadow an experienced volunteer sometimes for several months of training. Older prisoners often have special needs; some have problems with mobility, others dementia or mental health.

The Testimonies

 

While many of these men might be forgotten or overlooked by the outside world, the Holy Spirit is doing an extraordinary work of revival among Marshall County Correctional Facility inmates. This is evident from their testimonies of transformed lives through the gospel, which is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). Freedom in the Gospel is the message series by Paul Washer at Marshall County Correctional Facility. HeartCry is a missionary society founded by Paul Washer. The mission's one great and overriding passion is that God's Name be Great among the Nations (Malachi 1:11) and that the Lamb receive the full reward for His suffering (Revelation 7:9-10).