Just before he received his last prison sentence in 2019, Lewis Gibson was living in a homeless hostel. He’d been warned that he would end up in jail again if he continued on his drug-fuelled lifestyle.
‘I was in despair, because I knew I was going back to prison,’ Lewis explained. At a crisis point, Gibson turned to a United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) devotional he’d picked up during a previous stint in prison. In it, he read Romans 10:13: ‘Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’
He took a marker pen and wrote the verse on the wall of his room. ‘It struck me as a revelation,’ he said. ‘I read it again, and I read it out loud. I was so desperate. I’d had enough of the way I was living my life.’
Why our prisons aren’t working, and what’s needed
Despite the imposition of “special measures”, “urgent notifications”, “improvement plans”, and “change agendas” in our prisons, something we mortals are …