In prison, inmates lose many freedoms, and in California another one just went up in smoke.

The California Department of Corrections has banned cigarette smoking indoors and outdoors for both inmates and employees. The Department of Corrections hopes this move will cut health care costs by hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

When smoking was banned in Maine prisons, it led to a 400 percent increase in assaults. That spurred Vermont and New York to ease up on their anti-tobacco policies.

I just came back from CA, Bill Glass Weekend of Champions event.

I was told by one of the wardens, "cigarettes and tobacco are banned from prisons and jails, and health is good, for sure", but here are some of the side effects:

"One sigarete costs $5 dollars behind bars."

"Tins that normally cost $8 can run as much as $900 on the cellblock."

"Cigarettes are the higly desirable commodity now, a simple of prestige."

Guards and the service crew, who make some $5,000 to $7,000 a month, are capable of pulling as much as $50,000 a month by smuggling staff in.

What do YOU think? Do you have somone in chains, who are affected? Do you ministry in CA?

Folks, let's talk about this issue HERE, at PrisonForum.us. Press a link.

INPM will send a printout of this discussion to the Governor Schwarzenegger and to California Department of Corrections.

Greetings CPP Partners and Friends,

Are you getting ready for Christmas yet? Well, now is the time!! Get out some cards and pens, it's that time of year once again to send a message of hope and joy into the lonliness of prison life.

I have saved addresses of inmates who are expressing lonliness of having no one writing to them, or ones who updated a request for a pen pal, looking forward to getting a Christian pen pal.
Some have lost loved ones and may not be remembered at all this Christmas.

Can you help?

As few or as many cards as you can mail out, please pray about it, and E-mail us soon with the number.

Also, some have asked for help with stamps, gifts, money for hygiene items,

Christmas is a good time to send them a special blessing, in Jesus's name!

All who participate will get another e-mail with instructions. As always, you can use your address or the ministry's. Maybe you can get your church or friends involved?
Most all of these inmates are our brothers and sisters in Jesus, saved, and love our Lord. Let's let them know Jesus hasn't forgotten them!

We are grateful for each one of you serving Christ within the prisons, so please know you are in our prayers and may you and your family have a most blessed and joyous Christmas season!!!

It's been a wonderful year, simply because He lives! Each year Christ becomes more and more the center of our life and living, He makes it all worth while. 
May God bless you in your service to Him,  I pray you have a Joyous Christmas and God's best in 2006!  

Please keep Christian Pen Pals outreach ministry in prayer, for the volunteer pen pals, the inmates, and God of the harvest to raise up more Christians to join with us.

In Christ's love,

Jesse & Beth Michael, Executive Directors
Christian Pen Pals / Pen Pal Connection

Member of International Network of Prison Ministries                          

Email from: http://PrisonMinistry.Net/cpp/email

California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation, Warden Matthew Kramer: Folsom State Prison, Prison Industrial Authority in collaboration with Faithbased and Community Organizations will provide the opportunity for inmates at the Folsom State Prison Minimum Unit to participate in the Folsom State Prison Re-Entry Initiative.  The Initiative consists of an intensive in-prison curriculum based on Biblical Principles followed with community support for the released offender and his family.  The Initiative is scheduled to open November 2006.

Please mark your calendar.  Your attendance will be greatly appreciated.

Refreshments will be served

 Hosted by Alpha USA Division of Prisons and Re-Entry

Nicaragua Prison Ministries, Inc.
 
Managua, Nicaragua

Nicaraguan Prison Ministries, Inc. has negotiated a large donation for the Nicaraguan Prison System. In total, 14 shipping containers of medicines, medical equipment, beds and office furniture are being donated from Food for the Hungry International. The total value is expected to exceed $1.12 million.

The first container, filled with medical supplies, was distributed to eight prison districts on August 25, 2006. The second container, which arrived a week later, held commonly-used medicines with a combined shelf value of over $700,000. The other 12 containers, comprised of bedding and office furniture, are still in transit.

As part of the agreement, NPMI staff and volunteers, including two board members and an accountant from Costa Rica, are supervising the distribution and use of these medicines and products.

NPMI negotiated this donation on behalf of the Nicaraguan Prison System, which just a month before requested 200 mattresses. At that time the NPMI Board could promise only 50, and money for them was not yet available.

Scott Martin, an NPMI board member and director of FHI in Costa Rica, is excited. "Imagine, over 450 complete beds are headed across the ocean. Imagine our joy of this gift after years of frustration and agony at having to say ’no’ to many urgent requests for medicines. NPMI devotes $225 per month for medicines for the prisoners, just a tiny fraction of the real need. It is pure joy to receive and distribute this gift to the prisoners who need it so badly."

A groundbreaking discipleship course for prisoners in Dartmoor prison has been axed by the Prison Service after only one year because it did not comply with ‘diversity policies’.

The closure of the Inner Change programme raises wider concerns for similar programmes and courses, such as Alpha, in British prisons because of fears that they may fall foul of the multi-faith approach of the government. Lady Georgie Wates, of the Prison Fellowship, who helped to set up the course in Dartmoor Prison, said the future of Christian teaching and chaplaincy in prisons was now hanging in the balance. “There are two reasons for the closure. First we don’t comply with the diversity policy of the Prison Service because we teach the sanctity of heterosexual marriage as the Bible says, which is seen as homophobic. “And secondly, because we don’t fit in with the multi-faith agenda. They think we should be teaching a bit of every religion and that what we’re teaching offends other faiths.”