Jail Ministry: The Role of Hope

By Dr. Anthony Todd Brown

Hope for ex-offenders commits to lending a hand to individuals to successfully unite with their families and reenter the workforce and our community. If you release someone with the same skills with which they came in, they are going to get involved in the same activities as they did before. As soon as society recognizes that the better shape we release ex-offenders and facilitate their successful reentry into society, the safer all of us will be. This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope. It is of Jehovah's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. —Lam. 3:21–24 (ASV)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645448525

Book preview

Chapter 1

Introduction

The aim of jails and prisons is to reform and rehabilitate prisoners so they may successfully reintegrate into society upon release and avoid recidivism.¹ Many of today’s prison-based programs aimed at reducing recidivism are facilitated by religious organizations.² Because the United States correctional system has a rich history of religious instruction, much of its vernacular comes from religious perspectives—such as penitentiary, solitary confinement, and reform.³

Despite the role of religion in the United States correctional programming, policy- and research-related emphasis is usually on secular, prerelease programs such as restorative justice, justice reinvestment, and recovery capital; thus, little is known about the mechanisms through which faith-based programs may improve offender behavior and reduce recidivism. As O’Connor⁴ argued, religion has been neglected in criminal justice research on criminality and reform. Although research indicates that spirituality and faith-based interventions can have significant, positive effects on offenders’ behaviors⁵ and recidivism rates,⁶ the role of religion and spirituality in the desistance of criminal behaviors are not fully understood.⁷

The purpose of this major project was to explore the concept of hope as a mechanism through which jail ministries may help to reduce recidivism among participants of a jail ministry program in an urban Texas location. Specifically, I examined how a jail ministry program inspires hope, giving prisoners a sense of meaning, purpose, and an understanding of Christ’s grace and forgiveness. Research indicates that hope is a quality of psychological strength that can serve as a protective mechanism against adverse life events.⁸ According to Snyder’s hope theory, hope describes a positive state that fosters individuals’ sense of agency (energy directed toward an outcome) and pathways (ability to enact plans to meet goals). Because a reduced sense of agency and choosing inappropriate pathways is associated with criminal behaviors,⁹ hope may be a mechanism through which recidivism is reduced. Further, the concept of hope is central to the Bible’s teachings on redemption. It is through Christ’s sacrifice that all believers—even prisoners and criminals—are forgiven for their trespasses. Renewal through Christ provides believers with the chance to turn their lives around, find purpose, leave their pasts behind, and live in a Christ-like way. Through Christ, prisoners can develop a sense of hope that there is more to life than what they previously understood, that their lives have meaning, that they are not alone, and that they have the agency to turn their lives around. These factors may ultimately reduce recidivism.

The aim of this chapter is to contextualize and introduce this major project. It begins with a discussion of the current state of the United States criminal justice system, followed by sections on recidivism and rehabilitation. Next, I review retributive justice, the punitive style of justice upon which the Unites States criminal justice system is based. Three alternative, secular concepts of criminal justice are then reviewed to provide the reader with an understanding of current criminal justice rehabilitative programs, including restorative justice, justice reinvestment, and recovery capital. Current pre-release programs and policies are then discussed in order to contrast with jail ministries.

The second half of the chapter provides a description of the preliminary case study research that is embedded in this major project. The aim of the study was to explore the concept of hope as a mechanism through which jail ministries may help to reduce recidivism among offenders at the study site location. Accordingly, the research problem, guiding questions, and the nature of the study are presented. Finally, the significance of the project is discussed, followed by a brief summary of the chapter.

Current State of the Unites States Criminal Justice System

The Unites States criminal justice system is overwhelmed with offenders. Approximately one in one hundred Unites States citizens is currently incarcerated in the nation’s prisons and jails.¹⁰ As Travis, Western, and Redburn¹¹ explained, the United States has nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, yet it is comprised of just 5 percent of the world’s population—this represents a significant, disproportionately high number of Unites States inmates as compared to the rest of the world. The main types of convictions that lead to incarceration include drugs, theft, violence, and breaking public orders. A 2014 Department of Justice report on trends in incarceration and recidivism revealed that nearly one-third (31.8 percent) of individuals released from incarceration in 2005 served sentences for drug offenses. Among other prisoners released during the same year, 29.8 percent served time for property offenses, 25.7 percent for violent offenses, and 12.7 percent for public order offenses.¹²

The Unites States prison and jail populations have not always been so high, but they have ballooned in recent decades. For example, between 1980 and 2001, the number of incarcerated individuals increased by 371 percent from 319,588 to 1,504,350.¹³ Consequently, the terms mass incarceration¹⁴ and hyperincarceration¹⁵ have been used to describe the current state of the Unites States criminal justice system. This sharp rise in incarceration began after decades of stability in the prison population ended in the 1970s.¹⁶ As Taxman et al. explained, The era of mass incarceration was driven by efforts to increase the punishment allocated through greater use of incarceration, longer periods of incarceration, and reductions in parole release.¹⁷ However, while the United States tends to favor tough, punitive correctional policies, scholarly research indicates that correctional programming is far more effective for changing offenders’ behaviors and reducing recidivism than is incarceration, alone.¹⁸ Despite evidence of the benefits of correctional programming, and the ineffectiveness of incarceration for reforming criminals, the criminal justice system continues to cleave to incarceration as a rehabilitative measure. This simultaneous rise in incarceration alongside increasing understandings of more effective ways to reduce recidivism (other than incarceration) represents what Taxman et al. referred to as the paradox of America’s imprisonment binge.

While the aim of incarceration may be incapacitation and deterrence, researchers have explored whether mass incarceration has actually helped to reach those goals. Because states spend an extraordinary amount of money on incarceration, it is important to understand whether incarceration actually helps to reduce recidivism. While policy makers advocate evidence-based criminal justice policies, evidence that incarceration reduces recidivism is paltry. For example, Langan and Levin reported that more than two-thirds of state prisoners recidivate within three years of release. In another study, Mitchell, Cochran, Mears, and Bales found that the incarceration of individuals convicted of drug offenses did not reduce rates of recidivism.

Among research that does indicate mass incarceration has a positive impact on recidivism, methodological weaknesses lead to questions regarding the validity of such findings. Worse still, among methodologically rigorous studies, evidence exists that incarceration actually increases recidivism.¹⁹ Research also indicates that length of prison term has little effect on the likelihood that an offender will recidivate. As Mears, Cochran, and Cullen explained, incarceration has a criminogenic effect,²⁰ which is problematic for multiple reasons, including (a) risks of inefficient use of taxpayer dollars, (b) missed opportunities to reduce victimization, and (c) reductions, rather than improvements, in public safety.

Costs. State spending on corrections increased from $12 billion to over $55 billion between 1988 and 2013.²¹ According to the Vera Institute of Justice, the average per-inmate cost of incarceration to states was $33,274 in 2015. Annual expenditures per inmate varied by state, ranging from $14,780 in Alabama to $69,355 in New York. Factors that influence these costs include health-care expenses, employee salaries and benefits, prison population and size, and the inmate-to-officer ratio. At a time when state budgets are already stressed, increasing costs of incarceration can have significant, negative economic consequences. Thus, it is imperative that the causes of incarceration and recidivism are understood, and effective strategies are enacted to reduce the rates of each.

Causes of increases in incarceration. Researchers have examined the reasons for the massive increase in incarceration that has occurred in recent decades. Mears et al. explained that studies indicate that some of the culprits for the increased incarceration rate have been increases in violent crime, the war on drugs, racialization, and a movement toward political conservatism, which views stronger forms of social control (such as incarceration) as necessary for reducing social disorder.

Following the 1970s, crime gained prominence in Unites States policy debates, perhaps a consequence of decades of tumultuous race relations and political unrest.²² Consequently, punitive measures increased across all governmental branches, expanding incarceration throughout the country, both in terms of the number and duration of sentences issued. In the 1980s, the war on drugs resulted in mandatory lengthy sentences for individuals convicted of drug crimes, followed by three strikes laws enacted by half of the states in the country in the 1990s. These three strikes laws mandated minimum sentences of twenty-five years following a third conviction. Despite the increase in punitive measures in recent decades, no significant declines in crime have been indicated. As Travis et al. explained, following tougher punitive measures, violent crime rates have decreased, increased, and decreased again.²³ Thus, rising incarceration is not likely to be the result of increasing crime rates, but policies that favor incarceration. Simply put, increasing the length and number of prison terms has had little to no effect on crime rates throughout the country.

The failure of the Unites States criminal justice system, generally, and incarceration, specifically, to reduce crime rates indicates that alternative approaches are needed to target and reduce criminal behaviors. As discussed in this chapter, in addition to the traditional measures of retributive justice, other strategies for crime reduction include restorative justice, justice reinvestment, and recovery capital. While each of these strategies have strengths, marginal levels of effectiveness indicate that there is room for improvement and space for other strategies that may provide a more healing approach that results in long-term desistence. Religious and spiritual programs that emphasize hope, forgiveness, and healing may provide an alternative approach to criminal justice that helps individuals heal, turn away from crime, and live lives that have purpose and meaning.

Faith-based programming. The integration of faith-based programming in the penal system is nothing new, but studies on its utility for rehabilitation pales in comparison to research on retributive measures. However, research on faith-based programming to rehabilitate offenders is needed more than ever. Connolly and Robert posited that alongside the decline in government programs and funding provided to help those who are incarcerated, faith-based organizations and the religious men and women at their helms have come to assume a larger and more imperative role in attending to the needs of troubled individuals,²⁴ such as current and former inmates. As discussed later in this chapter, research indicates that some types programs can help reduce recidivism among some inmates, but the reductions are typically modest.²⁵ Thus, faith-based programming may fill the gap in existing prison programming. As Johnson said of the dismal effects of