Our recent newsletter (requires membership) focused on the historical tradition of the Society of Jesus and their martial founding nature, which is very suitable to working within the danger zone of criminal reformation.
In the current issue of the Jesuit magazine, Company, (click on the article California Centennial and scroll to the heading Ganglands and Social Outreach) there is a summary of some of their work in this arena.
An excerpt from the Fall 2009 issue of the Lampstand Newsletter Essay: Prisoner Reentry & Ignatian Mission:
“While community reentry efforts continue to be unsuccessful, faith-based prison programs appear to have some success changing the prison behavior of their participants. Unfortunately, these in-prison programs appear to have little interest in establishing community efforts at a scale to become effective in reducing the national recidivism rate of approximately 70%.
“Considering 700,000 prisoners are released annually, indicates 490,000 of them are returning to crime and prison, and this is a figure obviously unsustainable for too much longer without some degree of success at community rehabilitation efforts that can scale up to the point of impact.
“While government continues to develop its faith-based community strategy through the Second Chance Act, it seems appropriate to consider why few faith-based community rehabilitative programs exist while many faith-based prison efforts do.
“Johnson (2008), writing about the level of danger in working with criminals, inside and outside of prison, notes: “As important as volunteer work within correctional facilities might be, it does not diminish the fact that reentry and aftercare tend to be largely overlooked by most religious volunteers and organizations. Compared to reentry, prison ministry is a much easier task to pursue and a safe service opportunity in what many consider to be an unsafe environment….faith based organizations disproportionately opt for in-prison ministry rather than out-of-prison services because reentry and after care are anything but easy or safe.” (Johnson, B. R. (2008). The faith factor and prisoner reentry; Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, Vol. 4, Special Section p. 1-21. Retrieved August 15, 2009 from Academic Source Complete: EBSCO Database (AN 36238182) (p. 6)
“The recent decades-long war on crime inspired martial policing and legislation resulting in massive increases in incarceration and lengthy sentences—which, while one oft used analysis defines as a means of controlling the ethnic minority underclass—is rather, a response based on ancient behavior attuned more to the Old Testament than the New; but based just as firmly on the Catholic teaching of protecting the innocent by stopping the aggressor.
“One of the many terrible consequences of the great heresy of the reformation and the subsequent plunge into relativity in all things has been a corresponding loss among many of the faithful of the understanding of the martiality of our faith, the congruence and singularity of the mind of God as expressed in both the Old and the New Testaments.” (Lukenbill, D.H. (2009). Lampstand Newsletter #15, (pp.1-2)
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.