The World’s First Ministry Created to Support Individuals, Families & Groups with White Collar and Other Nonviolent Criminal Justice Issues

Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is the world’s first organization created to support individuals, families and groups with white-collar and other nonviolent criminal justice issues. Founded by husband and wife, Jeff Grant and Lynn Springer in Greenwich CT in 2012, we incorporated as a nonprofit in Connecticut in 2014, and received 501(c)(3) status in 2015.  Jeff has over three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law, reentry, recovery (clean & sober 16+ years), and executive and religious leadership. As Jeff was incarcerated for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001, he and Lynn have a first-hand perspective on the trials and tribulations that white-collar families have to endure as they navigate the criminal justice system and life beyond.

Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is nonsectarian, serving those of all faiths, or no faith whatsoever. To date we have helped over three hundred (300) individuals, and their families, to accept responsibility for their actions and to acknowledge the pain they have caused to others.  In accordance with our commitment to restorative justice, we counsel our members to make amends as a first step in changing their lives and moving towards a new spiritual way of living centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance, empathy and service to others. Our team has grown to over ten people, most with advanced degrees, all of whom are currently volunteering their time and resources.

Progressive Prison Ministry’s s goal is to provide spiritual solutions and emotional support to those who are feeling alone, isolated, and hopeless. We have found that these individuals are suffering from a void but are stuck, and don’t know what to do about it. Our objective is to help them find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what may seem like insurmountable problems. Many of those we counsel are in a place where their previous lives have come to an end due to their transgressions. In many cases their legal problems have led to divorce, estrangement from their children, families, friends and support communities, and loss of a career. The toll this takes on individuals and families is emotionally devastating. White-collar crimes are often precipitated by other issues in the offenders’ lives such as alcohol or drug abuse, and/or a physical or mental illness that lead to financial issues that overwhelms their ability to be present for themselves and their families and cause poor decision making. We recognize that life often presents us with such circumstances, sometimes which lead us to make mistakes in violation of the law.

If you, a friend, family member, colleague or client are suffering from a criminal justice issue, or other traumatic or life-altering event, and would like to find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what seems like insurmountable problems, please contact us to schedule an initial call or appointment.

Our ministry, as a 501(c)(3), accepts reasonable donations that are deductible to the extent permitted by law.

For our Contact Us page to arrange an initial call, video chat, or in-person appointment, click here.  For Jeff Grant’s bio, click here.  For Lynn Springer’s bio, click here.

Blessings, לשלום

Jeff

Rev. Jeff Grant, J.D., M.Div.
Co-founder/Minister, Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc., Greenwich CT & Nationwide

Link to Contact Info & Appointments.

Click here to read our article, “After Trauma: The Time for Spiritual Growth.”

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Recent Accomplishments

• We formed a great new community of persons and families with white collar and other nonviolent incarceration issues founded on empathy, compassion, care, hope and faith. 

• We have served over 300 individuals and families with white-collar and other nonviolent incarceration issues. 

• We welcomed over 145 participants on our weekly online White Collar/Nonviolent Support Group call. 

• We celebrated our 150th online support group meeting in April, 2019.

• We organized in-person reunions, retreats, lunches, presentations, religious services, sermons, ordinations, and holidays parties. 

• We formed deep, intimate friendships and rely upon one another every single day. 

• We shared resources and introduced one another to valuable opportunities. 

• We have been appointed to important positions in major criminal justice organizations, sit on boards, and are actively involved in the larger criminal justice reform movement. 

• We founded a new Prisonist Ethical Movement and founded the Center for Ethical Training & Transformation.
  

• We launched our new prisonist.org website. 

• We updated our prisonist criminal justice blog (prisonist.org/prisonist-the-blog) that has over 6 years of important content, with new blogs posted regularly.

• We have completed our second year of the Criminal Justice Insider Podcast, broadcast live on  WNHH 103.5 FM, New Haven, CT, live-streamed everywhere.
  

• We have been available for each other 24/7, all hours of the day, night, weekends, holidays and whenever anyone of us is in need. 

• We helped families to reunify in new and unexpected ways, parents to re-establish relationships with estranged children. 

• We helped each other make sense of the greatest challenges of our lives. 

Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. was founded in 2012, incorporated in 2014 and received 501(c)(3) status in 2015. We are an outreach ministry of St. Joseph Mission Church, 450 Wilfred Terrace, Cliffside Park, NJ, 07010, Rev. Father Joseph Ciccone, Ed. D, M Div, presiding, (201) 754-4GOD, saintjosephmissionchurch@gmail.com. St. Joseph Mission Church is a parish of the Progressive Catholic Church, Rt. Rev. A. Edmund N. Cass, D Min, CFS, OCR, Presiding Bishop, Little Portion Friary, 106 Courtney Circle, Greenville, SC, 29617.