to introduce you to one of our greatest problems in the family, which is the absence of fathers from the home. This is a major epidemic in our American families and if left unchecked we will continue to lose our young men and young ladies to drugs, gangs, violence, prison, teenage pregnancy, runaways, and suicide.

Today, if you would ask the mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, and girlfriends about the whereabouts of the men in their lives, you would find that too many of them will say that they are either in or have just gotten out of jail or prison. Today, a large number of our young men are being gunned down on our streets, as well as many innocent victims to gangs and gun violence.

In this book, I share many of my experiences of incarceration. One of those experiences includes seeing a father and a son incarcerated together, as well as the high number of young men I see each day that come behind these prison walls who are from fatherless homes. I will also share with you a bit about my son's being raised in a fatherless home, and how they forgave me in my absence and how God has reconciled us together again.

I would like for this book to get the attention of fathers on how important it is for them to be in their children's lives. I believe we can put a dent in the negative statistics of the absences of fathers in the home. This book is a compilation of statistics, firsthand experiences, and observations that are intended to be a red flag that will hopefully raise some more awareness and concern about this crisis. Maybe, just maybe, we can collectively demand some attention be given to this, and possibly bring about a change to what is happening in our American homes as it concerns this epidemic of the absence of fathers in the home.