Brand Development

Columbia Int'l University's Prison Initiative equips inmates to minister to their peers inside the prison system. Each student they admit has experienced an extreme and personal change in their spiritual outlook. The program teaches them more about the Bible, their own relationship with Christ, and how to use that knowledge in life-changing ways.

 

Walking into Kirkland Correction Institute, I felt like a complete outsider. 

Carrying around a stabilizer and very expensive looking camera equipment, I stuck out like a sore thumb.  In the prison yard, every eye was on me as I filmed where these inmates sleep, spend their lives, and the bars & fences that keep them locked away.

 

I made my way through the prison up to the Prison Initiative classrooms and met the students that participate in this program. Eventually, I forgot where I was. The men in this program don't seem harsh or dangerous. They aren't jealous that I would leave at the end of the day or angry at their own circumstances. I was surprised at how much gratitude they showed.  Gratitude over little talks about my camera equipment; the lessons they were learning in class; the degrees they were pursuing; and that I was there to help their program advance financially. The day ending with me standing in the middle of the prison yard taking photos of the Carolina sunset as a student-inmate talked with me about the best angle and position to view them from the prison grounds.

 

This was an eye-opening experience for me and provides a peek into the prison system for others.

The biggest question it raised: does our prison system even work (effectively) if there aren't men like the CIU students who can speak with inmates as peers to rehabilitate and counsel them? Statistics incorporated into this video show that many men are in and out of prison in our state, but inmates who come into contact with a CIU P.I. graduate is much more likely to leave prison for good at the end of their sentence and thrive in their civilian life.