Every day, you hear countless stories of those who have fallen victim to a violent crime, usually committed by someone who has a long history of criminal activity. And you ask, is there no rehabilitation for these men and women?

Yet one man in Fayetteville strives single-handedly to stop the cycle of violence performed by these people. He is a chaplain and he works nearly every day preaching, counseling and studying with the men in jails all along the south-side of Atlanta.

He knows the system pretty well too. After all, 36 and a half years ago he was sitting in exactly the same place before the Lord called him out of his criminal ways.

"I was hooked on drugs, booze, and a bunch of other sin that was destroying me and my Lord saved me out of it all, and I praise Him for it," said Max Strozier, 70.

Just after Strozier became a child of God, he asked the Lord what he should do with his life.

Strozier said the answer came to him clearly, "I want you to go back to jail."

He said this answer was a little disturbing to him initially, but in obedience he submitted to the calling and "God has been faithful to be with me all along."

Strozier, who attends Kenwood Baptist Church, has a regular schedule with the jails. Every Tuesday he is at the Fayette County Jail, every second Sunday he works at the Fulton County jail, every second Monday he visits the Clayton County jail and every second Sunday evening he preaches at the Rescue Mission in Atlanta to 75-200 homeless men and women.

But the job doesn't end there, he says. Many times inmates request for him to come back, to help with Bible studies he distributes, to talk with them, to pray with them.

When Strozier walks into the jail, he asks the prisoners to join him in the chapel.

"Usually there's 100 to 150 vicious prisoners that come," Strozier said. "I get their attention and just trust God."

"I tell them, 'I'm sorry you're in here.' I try to cheer them up, get them listening because they don't care how much you know, they care about how much you care."

He says he reads Isaiah 1:18 to them, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

Appealing to their intellect of reasoning together, with God who wants to reason with them, makes sense to them, said Strozier.

Strozier says many of the prisoners that attend have seen him before, if not at this jail then another. But they keep coming back to hear him and many, Strozier says "come to know the Lord."

Spread out before him in this interview, he has piles of letters to testify that men are vowing to change their lives, to study the Bible, to learn to care for their families. Men who have found freedom in Christ while in jail.

And he just says, "Give the glory to the Lord."

When he's at the jail, Strozier distributes free Bible courses supplied through an organization called Highways and Hedges, begun by the Rev. Tom Norton of Sharpsburg. The ministry sends the courses to 288 institutions in Georgia and 800 institutions in the eastern United States.

Strozier emphasizes the importance of studying the Bible after becoming a Christian, in order to grow and learn to become more like Christ.

Strozier also has a tract he hands out that he personally wrote that is directed mainly toward prisoners, based on his own experience.

"The only right you need to be concerned about is, 'Is your heart right with God?' Get that settled and then you will have the great right to become a son of God," warns the tract. "Along with that great privilege is responsibility and if you put a sincere effort to perform that responsibility, God will give you power, strength, and wisdom to do it and that brings joy, peace and contentment. So why delay?... Delay is deadly!"

Strozier, who admits experience with drugs and alcohol before he became a Christian, relates this testimony to many of the inmates.

"I ask the inmates, 'How many of you were on some kind of alcohol or drugs when you got into trouble?' It's usually about 90 percent says yes," said Strozier.

"It's strange how this government keeps condemning the tobacco industry, which is a dirty mess, but you hardly ever hear them trying to close down the liquor industry," Strozier said. "I've never met a prisoner yet that has said he or she did that wicked deed that got them locked up and left their families and loved ones to suffer because they had too many puffs, but I've heard many of them say they did it because they had too many drinks."

Strozier says he'll continue his ministry as long as the Lord allows him to live. He says the Lord promised him at least as many days as he had been lost to preach the Word of God to others. Strozier buys all his tracts himself and purchases Bibles for inmates through regular donations.