Houston, Texas — ‘Everyone he meets,” says a friend of Brent Johnson’s, “winds up going to prison.” Johnson is a Houston businessman. And he volunteers in a prison. Those he meets, he encourages to volunteer as well. They often do, and they wind up enjoying it. There are some 1,200 volunteers in this particular prison — and only 300 prisoners. That is an astonishing ratio.
The prison is the Carol S. Vance Unit, in Richmond, outside of Houston. The prison is dedicated to the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, which is part of the Prison Fellowship started by Chuck Colson in 1976. IFI began in 1997. It started with 25 prisoners and five volunteers. In a biography of Colson, Jonathan Aitken, the British politician and ex-con, makes a large claim: IFI is the most successful prisoner-rehabilitation program in America. It may well be true. The program has many components, and one of them is a Business Plan Expo: Inmates present plans for businesses they’d like to start once they’re on the outside. Pros like Brent Johnson serve as judges.
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