Welcome to DC Public Safety \u2013 radio and television shows on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n
See http:\/\/media.csosa.gov <\/a>for our television shows, blog and transcripts. We now average 225,000 requests a month.<\/p>\n This radio program is available at http:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/audio\/2010\/07\/the-role-of-faith-and-released-prisoners-dc-public-safety\/<\/a><\/p>\n We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov <\/a>or at Twitter at http:\/\/twitter.com\/lensipes<\/a>.<\/p>\n [Audio Begins]<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 From the nation\u2019s capital, this is D.C. Public Safety.\u00a0 I\u2019m your host, Leonard Sipes.\u00a0 Back at our microphone is Reverend Yvonne Cooper.\u00a0 She\u2019s here to talk about faith based mentoring and this whole concept of what it\u2019s like to have volunteers sit down with individuals out of the prison system.\u00a0 What they\u2019re doing to help these individuals readjust to life on the outside of a prison setting.\u00a0 With her today is Louis Sawyer.\u00a0 Louis is on parole being supervised by my agency, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, we\u2019re a federal parole and probation agency here in the District of Columbia.\u00a0 Before we begin the show, the usual commercial, a thank you to everybody.\u00a0 We are up to 225,000 requests on a monthly basis for D.C. Public Safety, radio, television, and blog, and transcripts.\u00a0 We really appreciate your comments.\u00a0 We live by your comments, whether they\u2019re negative or positive, and we really, really, really super appreciate them.\u00a0 If you want to get in touch with me directly, you can do so by emailing me, Leonard, L-E-O-N-A-R-D \u2013 dot-sipes \u2013 S-I-P-E-S – @csosa.gov, or you can follow us via twitter at twitter.com\/lensipes.\u00a0 Back to our guest, Reverend Yvonne Cooper and Louis Sawyer.\u00a0 Welcome to D.C. Public Safety, Yvonne and Louis.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Thank you so very much!<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 It\u2019s always fun when you\u2019re on the program, Yvonne.\u00a0 There\u2019s never a dull moment.\u00a0 You are enthused, you are charged up about what it is that you do, and you\u2019re an inspiration to the rest of us who plod through, sometimes those of us who are paid to do this, we plod through this at a certain point.\u00a0 Sometimes our enthusiasm wanes, sometimes our enthusiasm is not as it should be, your level of enthusiasm is always at peak level.\u00a0 Why is that?<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Well \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 And you don\u2019t get paid to do this.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 No, I do not!\u00a0 No, I do not.\u00a0 You know, God has placed on my heart to help those who can\u2019t help themselves.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to call it the least, the limited, and the lost, and so I\u2019m so excited that the Lord thought it not a robbery to choose me, even me, a former wretch like me, to help some other folk that have come through the trenches, because I too have gone through the trenches, having been there, done that, former felon myself, or felon, I guess I should say, and I\u2019m just so glad that I had that experience, because had I not had that, I would not be doing the work that I do, so I\u2019m excited.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 You wouldn\u2019t be doing this work if you hadn\u2019t had that experience, if you hadn\u2019t been part of the criminal justice system, if you hadn\u2019t been incarcerated yourself, you wouldn\u2019t be doing it?<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure I would not have been involved.\u00a0 I thought of criminals as \u201cthose people,\u201d but when I had the opportunity to be imprisoned myself as a convicted felon, I learned that I was more like them than different, so it\u2019s because of that experience that I do what I do today.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 And I think one of the reasons we do the radio shows, and one of the reasons we do the television shows is sometimes to put a human face on the individual that we call an offender of what most people would simply refer to as criminal.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Sure.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Because they read the newspapers, they watch the evening news, and every day, there\u2019s endless litany of people under supervision, or formerly under supervision doing terrible things to other human beings, and that\u2019s how they derive their image of \u201ccriminal.\u201d\u00a0 One of the things that\u2019s always surprised me is that once you sit across from, again, I\u2019ve been in the criminal justice system 40 years.\u00a0 I\u2019ve worked with offender, people under supervision, or the offender population for a lot of those years.\u00a0 So I understand that they\u2019re just, they\u2019re no different from you and I.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 There\u2019s a certain point that once they get beyond their criminality, and once they get beyond their drug use, they\u2019re pretty much not any different between you and I.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Yet the average person carries that stereotype, and that stereotype sticks.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 And that\u2019s one of the reasons why we don\u2019t have the drug treatment.\u00a0 That\u2019s one of the reasons why, in my opinion, one of the reasons why we don\u2019t have all the programs we need.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Certainly, certainly.\u00a0 Oh, I agree with you 100%, Lenny, but it is because of people like me and programs that are out there, that think it necessary to help our population to return back to society as a whole person.\u00a0 They\u2019ve had so many challenges, most times, even before they went in, and so certainly, they\u2019re going to have an abundance of problems when they come home.\u00a0 We look at today\u2019s times, the issue of jobs is so hard for Joe Q. Citizen, and it\u2019s doubly hard for those that have been incarcerated.\u00a0 Not just jobs, but even housing, those kinds of things, and so it is very important, at this particular time, that we help those who have come home, and, you know, as you, I don\u2019t need to say this to you, CSOSA being in place because of the fact that we don\u2019t have a facility here in Washington D.C. \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 We don\u2019t have a federal prison \u2013<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 A federal prison, thank you so much, a federal prison.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Offenders from Washington D.C. go to federal prison for the people, let\u2019s look at this \u2013<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 All over the country.\u00a0 And so, yeah.\u00a0 So I\u2019m excited about doing this work.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Louis Sawyer, you\u2019re on parole.\u00a0 You\u2019re under the supervision of my agency, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.\u00a0 You\u2019ve returned to the District of Columbia on February 9, 2010.\u00a0 That\u2019s a very short amount of time ago.\u00a0 How long did you spend in prison?<\/p>\n LOUIS SAWYER:\u00a0 Well, first of all, I want to thank you, Lenny, for the opportunity that you\u2019ve given to come and to speak to you and your listeners \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 And I thank you for participating.<\/p>\n LOUIS SAWYER:\u00a0 And I would like to say a shout out to your listeners.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Well, there you go.\u00a0 There you go.<\/p>\n LOUIS SAWYER:\u00a0 Yes, and I came home after doing 25 years \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 It\u2019s a long time.<\/p>\n LOUIS SAWYER:\u00a0 – on February 9, 2010, and I\u2019m grateful unto God that he\u2019s allowed me to come back to the city to be part of the re-entry of the returning citizens.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 But that\u2019s, most people who\u2019ve spent that amount of time in prison, who come back tell me that it is a really difficult process of spending 25 years in prison, and then come back.\u00a0 That\u2019s, a lot of people find that almost impossible to do.<\/p>\n LOUIS SAWYER:\u00a0 Well, in my daily reading this morning, it talked about the IM out of impossible and making it possible.\u00a0 With God, all things are possible.\u00a0 So I am a firm believer that 25 years was like a time in which it was needed for me, as an individual, because I could have been dead in my grave and on my way to hell and have died in my sins, but I thank God, because he allowed me to go through that, and this being the 25 years that I served was a, chapter one in my book, to come out and to be a better citizen, to be a catalyst to those who are coming behind me to be able to be that individual, to circumvent all the negativity, and to make sure that things are better.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Two things are crossing my mind.\u00a0 Number one, your faith.\u00a0 Obviously, you\u2019re an individual of faith, and one of the things that I\u2019ve found about a lot of people, if not most people, who cross that bridge, as I put it, from tax burden to taxpayer, a lot of it is faith.\u00a0 A lot of it is faith in a higher power, and to us as a federal agency, it doesn\u2019t matter to us whether it\u2019s Christianity, it doesn\u2019t matter whether it\u2019s the Muslim religion, it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s Catholicism, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 Most people who seem to do well express a sense of an allegiance, an alliance with God, and that helps them move through society, it helps strengthen them, and helps them deal with drugs, adversity, jobs, family, that sort of thing.\u00a0 Am I right or wrong?<\/p>\n LOUIS SAWYER:\u00a0 Well, let me concur with you on that, Lenny.\u00a0 There is a higher power, and it\u2019s God Almighty in my life, and I also believe that family is essential, along with the church family, along with mentors, along with advisors, along with counselors that have given you, given me a support network, a foundation, and without these individuals, God being at the head, family and church family and mentors and counselors and advisors, then I could not have been in this successful realm in which God has allowed me to be so far.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Now I do want to talk to you about these statistics about people coming back from prison because they\u2019re not very good.\u00a0 A lot of people fail.\u00a0 A lot of people return to the criminal justice system outside of prison.\u00a0 So I do want to talk with you about that, but Yvonne, talk to me a little bit more about faith, and again, that\u2019s a delicate issue for us.\u00a0 We\u2019re a federal agency \u2013<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Certainly.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 – we have no interest in promoting any particular religion, but without the faith based volunteers, and without the individual religious convictions of the individuals who seem to do well, my fear is that many more people, many additional people coming out of the prison system would not succeed.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Certainly.\u00a0 Well, you\u2019re absolutely correct.\u00a0 I have found, in my work, that as a result of a faith base, most people who succeed are those that have had that faith to hold on to, be it Christianity, be it Muslim, be it Catholic, it does not matter.\u00a0 The faith is the key element in my mind\u2019s eye.\u00a0 Now as you know, I am a Christian, but I work with everybody, because the Bible tells that God would have not one to be lost, and so I\u2019m excited when I\u2019ve learned that somebody has held on to some kind of spirituality base, and they have the spirituality base.\u00a0 That makes all the difference in the world.\u00a0 I mean, you\u2019re absolutely correct, and all those other components are important, but the faith piece is more important to me than anything else.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 You\u2019re a pastor at Allen Chapel, AME Church.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Associate minister, yes.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Associate minister.\u00a0 www.amamc.org<\/a>, www.amamc.org<\/a> is the website for the Allen Chapel AME Church in Southeast Washington D.C.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 You know, most people who are either Christian or who are Muslim or who are Jewish don\u2019t mentor to offenders.\u00a0 And it gets back to that larger issue of how society views people out of the prison system, and you know, if you hadn\u2019t been, you said it yourself, if you hadn\u2019t had the experience of being incarcerated yourself, you may not be mentoring to Louis today.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 That\u2019s correct.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 So we have this view, regardless of whether we\u2019re churchgoers or not, that those people have committed horrible things, and they\u2019ve harmed society, they\u2019ve harmed their families, they\u2019ve harmed other people, and you know, they tell me, Mr. Sipes, look, quite frankly, I\u2019d rather volunteer in the schools, or I\u2019d rather volunteer to the elderly.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather do other things besides mentor to offenders.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s true.\u00a0 That\u2019s unfortunate.\u00a0 I might have shared this with you before, Lenny, but for me, as a Christian, just, and I\u2019ll just drop this on you for just a few moments, the prison system originated in the church, where God had put in place cities of refuge when people committed crimes, and so we move along the line, I believe it was the Mormons, Mormons or something like that \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 It, it was \u2013<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 – started the first church \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Oh, For the Love of Heavens, it was in Pennsylvania \u2013<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 In Pennsylvania, right, and that\u2019s still churchy, if you will, and so for me, it makes sense that the church would go back and make a difference.\u00a0 I mean, that faith piece is very necessary.\u00a0 You look at this.\u00a0 When we, when I was out on the street \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 The Puritans, I apologize.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 The Puritans, that\u2019s what it was.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 I knew I had it.<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 Absolutely correct.\u00a0 When I was out on the street, and Louis, too, most of us, we were out on the street, there were no four walls.\u00a0 I mean, the world was our, was there for us, and we can do anything we wanted to, but when we went to prison, it was nothing but four walls, and so we had to sit down and listen, because somebody was there talking about faith.\u00a0 It was the Muslims coming in, it was Catholics coming in, it was Christian Protestants coming in, and so there was somebody to listen, and they had our attention, and so consequently, some of us had a sense enough to listen, and praise God, when we came out, we were looking at the world in a different color eyes, with different color shades, if you will, and so we\u2019re seeing things a lot different than we were, because before, I wasn\u2019t saved myself, and so it was not until I went to prison that I gave my life to God, and so I had sense enough to, you know, to listen up.\u00a0 And so the faith piece is very important.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 Well it\u2019s very dicey and delicate for an agency like ours, being a federal agency, to take on the faith based role, and even talk about the faith based role, because there\u2019s always inevitably people who are going to object to it, succinctly saying, Leonard, you\u2019re a federal agency, but it strikes me that the federal government, or any government entity is limited, is extremely limited in terms of what it is that we can do to reach the hearts and minds of individuals.\u00a0 What happens is, in terms of the faith community, is that this individual comes out of prison, and he or she is surrounded by individuals who help meet their basic needs, whether it be clothing, whether it be food, whether it be a place to live, whether it be fellowship, whether it be getting a suit for a job interview, whether it\u2019s taking care of the kids, the faith community in Washington D.C. and the faith community throughout this country does that sort of thing, so not only do they provide services, but I can\u2019t help but feel that, for so many people caught up in the criminal justice system, their lives have been very difficult.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of abuse.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of neglect.\u00a0 For female offenders, there\u2019s an ungodly amount of sexual violence \u2013<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 Certainly.<\/p>\n Len Sipes:\u00a0 – committed towards them.\u00a0 A lot of offenders are claiming mental health issues.\u00a0 If you sit and talk to the individuals caught up in the criminal justice system, and I\u2019m not making excuses for their criminal behavior.\u00a0 If you do the crime, you do the time.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 So I\u2019ll say that before the emails come in.\u00a0 But the issue is, is that they\u2019re really struggling with life\u2019s issues.\u00a0 Early age of onset for alcohol use, early age of onset for crime use, dropping out, drug use, dropping out of school early, criminal activity, these are individuals who desperately need what another faith based leader called \u201ca gang for good.\u201d<\/p>\n Yvonne Cooper:\u00a0 You talk about people before they go to prison, but I use Louis as an example, and he can speak to that himself.\u00a0 Louis, I\u2019m not sure when Louis was saved, before he went to prison, or once he got there, but I have never seen a person that I\u2019ve worked with to embrace the Lord in the way that he embraces him in this sense, that he puts his entire trust in God.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care what it is, when he was looking for a job, when he was looking for housing, when he was looking for clothing, he was putting his entire trust in God.\u00a0 He is an example of a person who really has put all of his trust in God, and it\u2019s because of his faith.\u00a0 Again, I understand, and I appreciate the fact that there are other religions out there as well, but I can only talk about Louis and Christianity right now, so Louis maybe should address that fact.<\/p>\n