Greystone Chapel: Finding freedom inside Folsom Prison’s walls

Folsom Prison’s Greystone Chapel is perhaps the most famous California prison chapel, thanks to Johnny Cash. Open to all inmates is a great beacon of hope for everyone in a place that is, by all definitions, a massive failure of a social engineering experiment. Yet within the structures of the prison and deeply embedded into the life of the chapel are opportunities for renewal, and people who offer themselves and their lives in audacious ways—and at incredible risk—for the good of all. This is true when inmates break ranks from gang affiliations in pursuit of a lifestyle change, bonding together with members of other races from the newfound community, seeking a way out of the intense life on the yard, however deep they may be into the prison dynamics.