Jailhouse Religion: How This Ex-Prostitute Turned Death Row to “Life Row” – (John Jessup Aug 4, 2016:CBN News) “I had a lot of people tell me, ‘Oh, this is jailhouse religion. And when you leave, you’re going to lose it!’ It’s been nine years, and I’m more on fire and more zealous today than I’ve ever been. And I refuse to hear that. I’m going to live for Jesus, and I’m going to stay on fire. I want to see revival in the prison,” said Dawn Knighton, a former prison inmate.
Her life of crime began early on, using and selling drugs. She also eventually sold her body to feed an addiction to crack cocaine. Raped, battered, and abused by some of the same men who paid her for sex, Knighton lost her desire to live. Kathy Tolleson recalls seeing Knighton walking the streets in pursuit of men looking to pay for sex. “I didn’t know Dawn personally, but I know I was praying for Dawn and a number of others like her.” She didn’t just pray, she used a bullhorn to threaten to call the police, and also posted signs that read “No Prostitution Zone” to discourage prostitutes from picking up customers in front of her family home. At the time, Knighton wasn’t aware of those prayers. All she knew was that this lady was hurting business.
Eventually her nearly 50 felony convictions caught up with her. She faced up to 15 years in prison after her last arrest. The night she was taken in, she was place in maximum security and confined in an eight-by-ten cell with only a Bible. That was when she decided to recommit to her Christian faith from which she had walked away. “I said, ‘God, if you’re really who You say You are and You can set me free, if You’ll set me free, I’ll spend the rest of my life telling people what You’ve done in my life.’ And He did!” she explained.
Knighton began to counsel and pray with other female inmates. She was released after serving only a year and a half and credits her early exit to the “grace of God.” In 2013, she earned a doctorate I theology. Knighton’s changed life has given her access within the Florida Department of Corrections to minister to women in the very same prison where she once served time.
Perhaps the most surprising partnership is one she developed at a Christian conference, when she bumped into an unsuspecting acquaintance from her past. “You don’t remember me, do you? You’re the lady with a bullhorn,” said Knighton. “And you’re the lady who used to be on my corner,” said Kathy Tolleson. They now attend the same church along with the women enrolled in Knighton’s program. She and her housemates view Tolleson as a “spiritual mom.” The two also preach together and pray for women on death row, which they affectionately renamed “Life row.” Knighton is now taking her message into men’s prisons and planning to open discipleship homes for them, too. But her passion remains the same: to see a radical change in what she calls the “prison nation.”
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