Corrections_Today_March_April_2023_Vol.85_No.2

Correctional Chaplain Perspectives

First, it is difficult to extrapolate the impact of mentoring from the impact a comprehensive reentry course-plan that includes case management, drug and alcohol edu cation, cognitive restructuring and various other components, as well as mentoring, might have. Second, funding in corrections is cyclical and spending priorities change. Funding for recruiting, training, monitoring and retaining volunteer mentors may or may not be avail able from year to year. Finally, mentoring programs are difficult to sustain. Even when money is avail able, recruiting mentors from the community, and retaining quality mentors can be overwhelming. Faith-based programs and mentoring Faith-based organizations can be a reliable source of volunteer men tors. When it comes to recruiting mentors, faith-based programs have access to congregations, many of which have either an existing prison ministry or a desire to reach out to men and women who are incarcerat ed. Correctional chaplains have long partnered with faith communities to provide resources and volunteers to ensure religious needs are met behind bars. Both in-prison and cor respondence faith-based programs have been ways for facilities to incorporate evidence-based practices and provide much needed pro-social connections for their populations. In many instances, the correctional facility chaplain or the faith-based volunteer coordinator is responsible for evaluating these programs and making them available to the men or women they work with.

AMinnesota study by Duwe & King (2013) concluded faith-based programs can be effective when criminogenic risk factors are tar geted. 4 As correctional professionals, it is not always easy to articulate the Faith provides a hope that can ignite the internal motivation to make positive life changes. value of religious programming to the mission of rehabilitation. Faith and rehabilitation do not have to be mutually exclusive. Faith-based programming and interaction with mentors from outside faith communi ties provide very real opportunities for pro-social growth for the incarcer ated. This is often obscured by the phenomena of “jailhouse” faith or faith-based volunteers who come to prison with their own agendas but don’t understand the populations they serve. Faith-based services and Bible studies are valuable, but only to the extent they lead those who participate to the place where they apply the life changing wisdom of the Bible to their day-to-day lives. There is no shortage of incarcerated individuals who have more Bible knowledge than most clergy yet think and live inconsistent to the faith they profess. The major ity of incarcerated men and women who pursue faith are not, however,

simply faking it or delusional. They are broken, lost, and trying to find answers to how they can change. They understand their thinking and behavior have brought them to prison. Many of them are very aware of the damage they have caused to others, especially those they love. A key message of the Bible, that a person can be forgiven, can live their life differently, and maybe even have a fulfilling future is compelling to someone who is broken and without hope. Faith provides a hope that can ignite the internal motivation to make positive life changes. When the COVID-19 virus hit in 2020, correctional professionals had to deal with a series of diffi cult collateral consequences. With closure of programs and visitation, the incarcerated were isolated and disoriented, and staffing challenges compounded the difficulties of man aging correctional facilities. Most facilities are still in the recovery process of rebuilding the services they previously provided. Over the past two years, correspondence study and mentoring programs were able to fill part of the void created by program and visiting closures due to the pandemic. As services are established, or reestablished, there is an opportunity to rebuild with pro gramming that not only meets the religious needs of the population, but that target the real criminogenic risks that bring someone back to prison. Faith-based programs that focus on taking responsibility for past actions and challenge partici pants to address the thinking errors that have informed their anti-social thinking and behavior can make a significant impact. →

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