However, you really need to look at the byproduct. If you lock somebody up for 25 years, but they come out with no skills for the real world, then really you are just setting yourself up for failure. The Church of Gethsemane helps offenders prepare for release from prison by giving them information through a newsletter and maintaining a letter-writing project. Since the early 1990s, more than 50,000 prisoners have received Liberation Voices, Gethsemane's Bible-based newsletter. Inmates often apply to the church for letters to the parole board, post-release referrals and legal assistance.
Prisoners become church members after completing a seven-part correspondence course.
The letter-writing campaign injects a ray of hope into an environment of despair, according to Gethsemane member Darryl Carathers, a Queens resident who has served more than 15 years in various New York prisons. The letters were really uplifting. Even if I didn't receive any mail from my family, the church was there for me. They wrote letters for the parole board for me. I was denied parole once.