Former pro football player in Birmingham to raise support for Tuesday prison ministry event.

MOUNTAIN BROOK,AL (WBRC) -  It's no secret Alabama's prisons are overcrowded.  That's why a former pro football player is using his fame to address the issue.  Bill Glass made a name for himself playing for the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns, but since he left the gridiron he's spent more time in prisons that on the playing field. "We all get a second chance because we're all less than we ought to be so we all need that second chance," said Glass.

Glass has worked in prisons through his ministry "Champions for Life."  Over the years he's developed a sense of why he thinks prisons are overcrowded.  "One of the real problems in this country is that fathers don't take their rightful position as blessor of the family," said Glass, "I've discovered that most violent criminals have a real problem with their daddy."

On Sunday Glass' message at the Mountain Brook Community Church was for fathers to be strong in their families.  He says he interviewed 44 death row inmates in Mississippi and they all said they had a bad relationship with their father.

 "I think it would solve the criminal problem in our country if we could get fathers to begin to function as fathers," said Glass.

 But having bad dads step up to the plate isn't the only solution.  Anyone can help by volunteering.  "People from the outside world go in to work with the inmates in prison and that creates an opening for them once they get out to say I'll become a member of a church like that," said Glass.

 " The biggest problem is once they leave prison we have to assist them to not go back to where they were because most guys go back and do the same thing that got them there," said Jack Baker, Area Director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

 Baker says nearly 60% of all inmates return to prison within three years after they've been released.  Baker and Glass hope "Champions for Life" can change that statistic.  "The more volunteers you have working in prisons the more likely the inmate is to rehabilitate when he gets out," said Glass.

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