It is a problem we see all too frequently.
People who commit crimes serve sentences and then after release go back to commit the same crimes and end up in jail.
When I recently attended the Reign in Life and Safe Haven Outreach Ministries countywide community forum on reintegrating ex-offenders back into the community, I heard many ideas and a desire to help quell the recidivism rate of offenders in Marion County.
Robert Johnson, the senior pastor of St. Mark United Methodist Church in Wichita, Kan., who grew up in Columbia, visited with members of his church and Spencer Lindsey, the founder of Working Men of Christ.
Johnson’s mother, Ella Ruth Johnson, carries out a similar ministry here in Columbia for women. The group is working on a solution for men who are released into our community.
It’s much-needed. As Lindsey pointed out, men who have been a part of Working Men of Christ’s program return to prison less – much less. As a matter of fact, in the past few years the program’s recidivism rate is the complete opposite of the normal rates. Of all of the men who have been a part of the program, one has returned to prison and one dropped out of it.
Lindsey, a five-time offender, turned his attentions to the ways of the Bible during his last stint in prison and turned his life around. He began the ministry shortly after his release in 2011.
His message to the forum was that people in prison need hope and spiritual guidance.
“As a five time offender in Kansas, I was considered the worst of the worst,” he said. “I had a great upbringing. I was in church. But at 9 years old, cancer snatched my mother and my life changed.”
For several of his terms in prison, Lindsey was known as a “jailhouse lawyer,” the man who sued the prison system over everything.
“I wanted out, I didn’t think I needed to be there,” he said. “But on my fifth time in prison, God stopped me. All this that I had done wasn’t bringing any fruit in my life. My daddy said I would be nothing.”
But as he served that fifth sentence, Lindsey found hope as he began to read his Bible again.
“There were times that I didn’t want to go on,” he said. “The roots that had been started in church illuminated my heart. I said, ‘Lord what is it I have to do and he said, shut your mouth, and listen.’ I started to get a relationship with God and it started to change my life.”
One day, while sitting in his cell, he was led to do his cellmate’s laundry. Soon he began serving many of his fellow inmates. Lindsey said it was then that he realized God was working through him and encouraging him to help others.
“I found myself in the resource room,” he said. “That’s where the Bibles and spiritual books are. I frequented the room. There are people incarcerated that know – and God gives them ideas.”
A year later, Lindsey was released and had a new attitude.
“Prison was the best place I had ever been in my life, it allowed me to have a relationship with Jesus Christ,” he said. “I taught me accountability.”
Lindsey said he knew he had to minister to the inmates and help find solutions. The programs established in Kansas by the various groups have allowed these ex-offenders to reintegrate into society. Often, they can find employment and a place to live through the ministries. Their lives are no longer hopeless.
The idea of these ministries is a sound one; take away the hopelessness and maybe these former inmates won’t return to prison.
Let’s hope the talks between groups continue in Columbia to help people get back into society and be productive. It would benefit all of us in the long run. It could mean less crime and less tax burden on all of us. Inmates are one of the biggest costs that Marion County incurs. But more than that, it could mean a return of dignity for our fellow man (and women).
Maybe be helping ex-offenders, we can help ourselves. Only time will tell, but hopefully this program becomes a reality in Marion County and helps make it a better place. n
Mark Rogers is managing editor of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at news@columbianprogress.com.
