http:\/\/www.lamontcarey.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n[Video Begins]<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Hi and welcome to DC Public Safety.\u00a0 I’m your host, Leonard Sipes.\u00a0 Today’s program is on the Faith Community and their involvement in terms of offenders coming out of the prison system.\u00a0 You know the faith community has long been an important force in improving public safety, offender reentry, and victim services.\u00a0 Many faith-based organizations are uniquely suited to bringing together residents and local leaders to address challenges.\u00a0 There are more than 350,000 religious congregations in the United States.\u00a0 Faith-based institutions engage 45,000,000 volunteers; nearly half of the total number of American volunteers.\u00a0 The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships has worked to improve collaboration.\u00a0 The Department of Justice is one of 12 agencies that have a center for faith-based and community initiatives.\u00a0 Here in Washington DC, my agency, the Court Services of Offender Supervision Agency has joined 100 faith institutions resulting in 200 mentors being matched with 300 mentees, approximately 500 offenders have successfully completed the program since August of 2007. Our guests today represent a national perspective and efforts here in Washington DC.\u00a0 They are Eugene Schneeberg, Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships for the U.S. Department of Justice and Christine Keels, the Supervisory Program Analyst, and the FBI Leader, Faith-Based initiative Team Leader at CSOSA.\u00a0 And to Eugene and to Chris, welcome to DC Public safety.<\/p>\n
Eugene Schneeberg:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 That was a terribly long introduction.\u00a0 But what I wanted to do, Eugene, is to get across the full flavor of the fact that this is a massive undertaking, 350,000 religious congregations throughout the United States.\u00a0 Whether they be Christian churches, synagogues, whether they be led by imams.\u00a0 The whole point within the Islamic religion, the whole point is that this is huge; getting the religious community involved in this concept of offenders coming out of the prison system is a huge issue.\u00a0 And you’re part of the coordinating efforts for the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n
Eugene Schneeberg:\u00a0 Well, thanks, Leonard, for having us, first of.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Sure.<\/p>\n
Eugene Schneeberg:\u00a0 You’re absolutely right.\u00a0 This is a major issue and the faith community has for decades been out in front on this issue of providing needed services for the most vulnerable among us.\u00a0 And so President Obama recognizes that the Federal Government can do a lot to help people in need, but most often it’s the faith community or it’s non-profits in local communities on the ground, grass roots organizations that are going to have that face-to-face, direct contact with organizations. And so in that, we partner with faith-based organizations with secular non-profit organizations to let them know about what resources available to the Department of Justice, and we’re proud to do it.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Now there’s a certain legitimacy in terms of the faith-based community that we in government do not have.\u00a0 There is a certain moral responsibility, there is a certain, I guess, sense of respect in terms of the people who live within that community.\u00a0 They embrace their own faith organizations.\u00a0 I’m not quite sure they embrace us in government, but they embrace them.\u00a0 They embrace the congregations, they embrace the leadership.\u00a0 And it doesn’t matter, again, whether it’s a synagogue, whether it’s a mosque, whether it’s a church.\u00a0 They embrace that. So getting to them, getting them involved, in terms of people coming back from the prison systems.\u00a0 That seems to me to be extraordinarily important.<\/p>\n
Eugene Schneeberg:\u00a0 Well you’re right on.\u00a0 I think faith leaders have kind of an innate credibility within them.\u00a0 And they have the respect of the people in their community.\u00a0 They’re oftentimes when people are in need the first place they go is their local congregation, their church, or their mosque, or their synagogue.\u00a0 And so it’s a great opportunity, it’s a great asset for the Federal Government to be able to partner with these organizations.To be able to make grant awards, and provide training and technical assistance.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Christine, you and I go way back from the Maryland system before both of us came to the Court Services at Offender Supervision Agency. You’ve revitalized this whole concept of the faith-based effort here at CSOSA.\u00a0 You have a lot of people, 100 institutions, where am I on this list.\u00a0 Two hundred mentors resulting in 300 offenders being matched with a mentor.\u00a0 Approximately 500 offender mentees have successfully completed the program since August of 2007.\u00a0 That’s a lot of organizations; that’s a lot of human beings being assisted.<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 That’s correct.\u00a0 It’s a lot of energy, a lot of good energy around doing some very positive things for people who need our assistance.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Now throughout this program, ladies and gentleman, one of the things I do want to emphasize is that we have a yearly celebration of the faith-based program in Washington DC and throughout this program you’re going to see a lot of B-roll.\u00a0 You’re going to see a choir leading us in and out of these segments.\u00a0 And you’re going to see a special presentation by a gentleman on the second half talking about the streets calling his name, but nobody else remembered his name, but the streets call his name.\u00a0 So we’re going to again, focusing on this faith-based celebration, yearly faith-based celebration that we have in February every year. And Christine, the success of this program, I’ve talked to so many people within our program who were down and out, coming out of the prison system, nobody cared, nobody wanted them.\u00a0 But the faith-based organizations embraced them.\u00a0 They didn’t just provide food.\u00a0 They did, in some cases, provide shelter, and some cases provide clothing, in some cases provide substance abuse counseling, and other cases alcohol assistance.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s the embracement of the individuals of saying, “Okay, yeah I know that you’ve been out of the prison system, but you’re still a human being.”\u00a0 Embracing him and accepting him seems to be the bridge that allows a lot of people to cross over from law offending, to law abiding behavior.<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Having a role model is important for all of us.\u00a0 And so our mentors serve as life coaches, they provide resources, they help with decision making, and most importantly, they help people get off supervision successfully.\u00a0 We’ve had a number of early terminations as a result of those good relationships and those partnerships that have developed.\u00a0 And we’ve learned in the criminal justice system based on analysis, that what we’ve been doing in the past really hasn’t worked.\u00a0 So what work data’s telling us now, is that we need to work on cognitive behavior, and building relationships.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 The cognitive behavior means teaching them a different way of looking at life.<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 That’s right.\u00a0 Approaching things differently, having different options to be able to work with and being able to use their creativity to solve some of their problems.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Eugene, what do we say to people who \u2026 you’re part of a national effort and part of the White House effort, in terms of encouraging people within faith communities, to reach out and to join the institutions.\u00a0 They have to be trained; they have to go through a certain amount of training.\u00a0 They’re just not put out by themselves.\u00a0 Some cases it’s team mentoring, correct Chris, where we have two or three mentors working with one mentee.<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 Uh-huh.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 How do you convince people, how do we convince people that this is something in this day and age of there are kids that need to be taken care of?\u00a0 There’s the elderly that need to be taken care of.\u00a0 There are people who are out of work that need to be taken care of.\u00a0 How do we convince people to give time, support, and money effort to offenders coming out of the prison system?<\/p>\n
Eugene Schneeberg:\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 That’s a great question.\u00a0 And so it’s the argument and the case that we try to make often at DOJ.\u00a0 Which is these folks are coming home back to our communities.\u00a0 It’s not like when you lock them up, you throw away the key, they’re never going to come home.\u00a0 Ninety-five percent of people that are incarcerated are coming home.\u00a0 And without the proper support, the likelihood of them reoffending is high.\u00a0 In some cases, it’s high is about 60%.\u00a0\u00a0 And so not only is it the moral thing to do, but also from a fiscal perspective, we can’t afford to continue to incarcerate folks.\u00a0 I think in Massachusetts or some state, to incarcerate a juvenile for just one year is well over $100,000.\u00a0 You can send someone to Harvard University for less than it costs to incarcerate a teen in Massachusetts. So the burden to taxpayers to continue to fail people when they’re coming out of incarceration is way too high.\u00a0 And so it makes sense to make small investments, strategic investments, in organizations that can be effective and oftentimes community-based or faith-based organization can keep someone out of incarceration.\u00a0 Help them get a job, helping them get housing, for a fraction of what it will cost to keep them incarcerated.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Seven hundred thousand people leave state and federal prisons every year, 700,000.\u00a0 Now you go to national research, and 50% are back in the prison system in three years.\u00a0 If you can hook them up with a mosque, a synagogue, and a church, if you can get them to be embraced by that community, and also at the same time, serve their needs, housing needs, or need for alcohol anonymous, or the programs or drug treatment, you can really dramatically reduce the costs, the fiscal burden to states and the federal government in terms of people going back to prison.<\/p>\n
Eugene Schneeberg:\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 If you go to our website, www.ojp.gov\/fbnp there’s links there to the work that the National Institute of Justice has done to evaluate community-based and faith-based organizations.\u00a0 If you go to the National Reentry Resource Center website, nationalreentryresourcecenter.org, there’s all kind of research that just really demonstrates the impact that community-based organizations are having.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 And we’ll be putting up these websites all throughout the course of the program. Chris, talk to me about what I said earlier about the fact that we in government have limited authority.\u00a0 The church, the mosque, the synagogue, they have the authority.\u00a0 They can communicate with individuals in a way that we cannot, is that correct?<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 That is correct.\u00a0 It’s returning to our good ole’ fashioned American values of helping our neighbor and doing what we can to empower the person who lives next to us or who exists next to us. And, of course, as the Federal Government we cannot prosthelytize or force people to go into any religious –<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Oh, thanks for bringing that up.<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 – into any kind of religious programming.\u00a0 However, our mentors are very well trained.\u00a0 That it’s really showing love through deeds and helping people to be able to make good decisions based on the experiences that our mentors have had. If our mentors walked the path, why not share that path with someone else so that they don’t go the wrong way?<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 And know in the second half we’ll have a mentor\/mentee team as part of a CSOSA effort and they will talk about their particular story.<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 That’s right.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 But I’m glad you brought up the fact that they cannot bring up their \u2026 they cannot try to convince somebody to join their church, or join the mosque.\u00a0 It is completely agnostic and that’s one of the points I’m glad that you brought up. You’ve got training throughout the course of the year.\u00a0 This is a big, involved program.\u00a0 You train new volunteers all throughout the course of the year.\u00a0 You offer training for the new faith-based institutions.\u00a0 And then we do this huge, big celebration in February that people are seeing the Biro of all throughout the course of this program.\u00a0 What you’re doing is a big operation.<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 It is.\u00a0 Like I said, lots of energy, lots of good energy that keeps us going.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Well interestingly enough, it’s the energy.\u00a0 Is it \u2026 either one of you can answer this question.\u00a0 Because look, we’re from the criminal justice system.\u00a0 It’s a tough system.\u00a0 It’s not exactly a joyous system.\u00a0 We have to deal with some tough people and some really tough issues.\u00a0 And this is probably one of them enlivening activities I’ve been in in my 42 years in the criminal justice system.\u00a0 The fact that you go into our faith-based celebration and you see hundreds of hundreds of people who have reached out to each other and have helped each other. That’s a positive thing that very few people, Eugene, hear about.\u00a0 And I think that’s one of the messages that we need to get across today, that this is something positive.<\/p>\n
Eugene Schneeberg:\u00a0 Well Leonard, I get calls and emails from all over the country.\u00a0 From faith-based organizations, some secular non-profits that are doing great work around reentry.\u00a0 I can think of none really better than what’s going on here in DC with CSOSA’s faith-based initiative.\u00a0 It’s really remarkable.\u00a0\u00a0 And I think, as we talk about celebration, I think in many of our congregations that sense of community, sense of belonging is what’s at the foundation of faith-based organizations.\u00a0 So they’re almost designed to be able to embrace folks, and embrace the vulnerable, embrace the broken, and celebrate what we have in common.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 But am I correct where the White House recognizes the limitations of government.<\/p>\n
Eugene Schneeberg:\u00a0 Of course.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 The Department of Justice recognizes the limitations of government.\u00a0 We only have a minute left, who wants it?<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 I’d like to have that minute.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Go ahead.<\/p>\n
Christine Keels:\u00a0 In our mentoring and mentor relationships, we have developed 12 special emphasis group, classes and programs that support the relationship between the mentor and the mentee.\u00a0 So that they can get together and work on the problems together.\u00a0 We have Celebrate A New Life, which is the men’s relapse prevention program, where the mentor and the mentee engage together in looking at new ways of handling things and looking at other options.\u00a0 relationship restoration, parenting classes.\u00a0 In fact this past Tuesday we graduated 43 of our offenders from the program.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 And that’s always amazing to go to one of those graduations.\u00a0 Eugene and Chris, thank you very much for being with us on the first half.<\/p>\n
Eugene Schneeberg:\u00a0 Thank you, Leonard.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Ladies and gentlemen, watch us on the second as we talk to an actual mentor\/mentee combination.\u00a0 And they’re going to talk about their life with each other and how they’ve been able to assist each other.\u00a0\u00a0 We’re also going to open with a piece from Lamont Carey, called The Streets Know My Name.\u00a0 We’ll be right back.<\/p>\n
Lamont Carey:\u00a0 See today is my first day back on the streets.\u00a0 And I got a secret to tell because this was a rude awakening for me.\u00a0 See all them nights that I sat up on that block and dreamed about this day.\u00a0 Now reality and hope just don’t look the same.\u00a0 So instantly I\u2019m in a drain.\u00a0\u00a0 See this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever felt ashamed.\u00a0 See I have to go live back at my mother’s house.\u00a0 And including her, everybody in there, they want me out.\u00a0 See they say I’m just another mouth to feed and there isn’t no place in there for me to sleep.\u00a0 And then the streets start to whisper to me, “Lamont, come back.\u00a0 You ain’t got to live like that.\u00a0 The streets ain’t changed, you still know this game.”\u00a0 See, the streets keep calling me by my first name.\u00a0\u00a0 And all my buddies I thought was going to take care of me when I came home, now they moving in that cell I just left or they’re dead and gone.\u00a0\u00a0 So I’m out here alone trying to fend for myself.\u00a0 And every time I look in your direction you roll your eyes in your head.\u00a0 So from you I can’t get no help and then the streets start to whisper to me.\u00a0 “Lamont, come back.\u00a0 You ain’t got to live like that.\u00a0 The streets ain’t changed, you still know this game.”\u00a0 See, the streets keep calling me by my first name.\u00a0 And on the day I go to see my parole officer, and she’s telling me that I got to do A, B and C, well she’s going to guarantee me they’re going to take me off the streets.\u00a0 And all I want to do is say, “Miss, just help me.”\u00a0 But it seems that she got her guards up like I’m here to try to make her job rough, so I keep my mouth closed and promise myself that I’m going to do as I’m told.\u00a0 But then the streets start to whisper to me, “Lamont.\u00a0 Come back.\u00a0 You ain’t got to live like that.\u00a0 The streets ain’t changed, you still know this game.”\u00a0 See, the streets keep calling me by my first name.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Hi, ladies and gentleman, welcome back to DC Public Safety.\u00a0 I remain your host, Leonard Sipes.\u00a0 We have two unique individuals with us.\u00a0 We have Artis Thomas.\u00a0 He’s a person being mentored by our program here at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.\u00a0 And James Fulmer, the mentor, the person who mentors Artis. But wasn’t that a great segment?\u00a0 We started off with Lamont Carey who gave a two-minute presentation on “The Streets Call My Name.”\u00a0 And the point behind Lamont’s artistry is the idea that nobody else is there to help him.\u00a0 Sometimes family members are there and they’re not there.\u00a0 Sometimes other people are there, but they’re not there.\u00a0 But the streets always call my name.\u00a0 The streets are always ready to call the person back to a life of crime. And so Artis, and then to James, I wanted to talk a little bit about that before getting into that piece that we just watched.\u00a0 James, give me a sense as to why you decided to get involved in the mentoring program.\u00a0 What church are you with?<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 I’m with Mount Lebanon under Reverend Lionel Edmonds.\u00a0 Wonderful.\u00a0 Awesome.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 And you got involved in mentoring people coming out of the prison system why?\u00a0 There are a lot of easier people to deal with.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 Well, first of all, God didn’t pick what people he wanted to be involved with.\u00a0 And I truly, truly believe that He picked me to be involved with these people.\u00a0 Because what He did was for me, was brought me up out of the addiction.\u00a0 What He did was save my soul.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Okay.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 And I have just decided to give back what was freely given to me.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 So you’ve lived that life, you’ve been there, you’ve been redeemed, you know it’s possible to be redeemed.\u00a0 And you decided to give that to Artis.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 So Artis, you were caught up in the criminal justice system?<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 Quick, fast, in a hurry.\u00a0 I came up too fast for myself, think you know everything.\u00a0 Just took matters to my own hands, and then ’til I surrendered to God, I found out that I can’t think for myself, I have to be led.\u00a0 Which is okay to feel that way, especially when you not living right.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 And I’ve been hit with abundance of good joy from going \u2026 being in Faith-Based.\u00a0 Because Faith-Based \u2026 what faith based got me is this.\u00a0 They showed me that I can be shameless.\u00a0 Talk about myself or the bad things I did to get over it.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Then once you start doing that, right, it will direct you to a path where you start being productive.\u00a0 Then once you start being productive, you get on a cosmic path and you start just seeing things, seeing brighter views of different things.\u00a0 You’re not thinking like you normally think. And for a lot of us who give Faith-Based a chance to see what it could do for you like it done for me.\u00a0 I can’t speak of them, but I’m just saying, if they was to give them a chance, Faith-Based really is there for us.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 If the faith program wasn’t there, Artis, where would you be today?<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 I would \u2026 to be honest \u2026 I might, probably be back in jail.\u00a0 Because for the simple fact I didn’t have nobody to take time, to walk me through my suffering.\u00a0 Because like the streets say, “It’s easy to swallow you up.”\u00a0 But I had something else on my mind to keep me from the streets.\u00a0 Like going to different programs, speaking at different churches with their own faith based, and doing stuff like that got me to win the Mentee of the Year award, all this kind of stuff.\u00a0 But then there people paying attention to me, hey, this is where I supposed to be.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 It’s a success story.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 But let’s go back to that piece that we saw when we were introducing this program by Lamont Carey, The Streets Call My Name.\u00a0 The streets are always calling the names of people.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 And they will always be there.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Why not the churches and the synagogues and the mosques?\u00a0 Why aren’t they calling this individual’s name?<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 Because we’re not crying out for help and we need to.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Okay.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 See, when you ask for something, you get it.\u00a0 But if I sit back and try to handle this myself, I really can’t handle this myself.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Well James, how powerful is this concept?\u00a0 The streets call my name, but we want the churches, and the mosques, and synagogues to call this person’s name.\u00a0 How difficult is that to pull off?<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 Well first of all I had to surrender to this fact that there is a Savior out there for me.\u00a0 And when I surrendered, then what I did was start going to church and participating.\u00a0 And my pastor, I have an awesome leader and a pastor that shows us the way.\u00a0 And he’s into involvement in the city in trying to help people to do things.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Did people know your background when they embraced you?<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 In the church?<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 They did.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 So they embraced you regardless?<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 Regardless.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Is that the most powerful concept on the face of the earth?<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 That is powerful.\u00a0 Nobody’s putting you down.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Nobody’s calling your name and yet now you’ve got hundreds of people embracing you.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 Exactly.\u00a0 And what happens is that we’re able to talk freely about our past to bring this us up to the present.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 And that’s a good feeling.\u00a0 That’s a feeling that we don’t get that much.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 When you can talk about your past and don’t nobody hold it against you, and can still show you how to do the right thing, that’s a person you want to connect with.\u00a0 That’s why this is my mentor right here.\u00a0 Because \u2026 and not just there, I got two of ’em.\u00a0 I’m greedy, I got two mentors.\u00a0 Okay.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 That’s not unusual.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 Can I say his name?<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Of course.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 His name is [PH] James Butcher.\u00a0 I got two because I knew it gonna take more than one person to help me out.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 By the way, we’re running the footage all throughout this program of CSOSA’s faith-based, city-wide celebration.\u00a0 It is amazing for those of us hard-nosed people within the criminal justice system to go in there and then see hundreds of people redeemed.\u00a0 That’s just amazing.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 \u2018Cause I was angry.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Because we’re so used to failure and now we see success.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 I was angry.\u00a0 I thought I couldn’t be a success.\u00a0 There was so much anger in me that I didn’t know I had, it take someone else to get it out you.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 It certainly don’t matter what you did, you can make it.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 One of the things that I love about Artis is that he was so open to “about change.”<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 He was participating.\u00a0 He comes back, even after he graduated.\u00a0 He graduated two or three times because he sees the need to change.\u00a0 And then so he’s open to listening to what the program has to offer.\u00a0 He’s one of the best, easiest guys I’ve worked with, to show them that there is another way.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 I want to ask what I asked of Eugene and Chris on the first part of the program.\u00a0 If everybody coming out of the prison system had \u2026 was embraced by the church, by the mosque, by the synagogue, if everybody had that support system –<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 They’ll make it.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 How would that cut recidivism, people going back to the prison system?<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 They wouldn’t be going back.\u00a0 Because you know why?\u00a0 They be coming out to a welcome.\u00a0 And somebody that’s looking, know what they went through, know what they’re going through, not holding it against them.\u00a0 You ain’t gonna find a better spot than Faith-Based.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 But how difficult is it to get everybody involved?\u00a0 Because people say, “Leonard, we’ve got kids that need to be taken care of -\u201d<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 They’ve got to surrender to God.\u00a0 They\u2019ve got to surrender.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 \u201c- we’ve got older people, we’ve got unemployed people.\u00a0 Do you really want me to give this level of effort to people coming out of prison or criminals?”<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 The question is do you want to leave criminals out?\u00a0 Not should you help the older people, the handicapped people.\u00a0 If you leave the criminals out, you’re going to get more crime.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 One of the things that is very outstanding to me, is the President, he did, he put his energy into this program and wanted to put a lot of energy in there.\u00a0 And it’s the same thing as when I came back home from Vietnam.\u00a0 Nobody was there for us when we came back.\u00a0\u00a0 Now there’s a thing where we need to be there for people coming back from prison.\u00a0 Because the Faith-Based initiative program is that’s what it has, an open arm to people that is come back from different types of walk.\u00a0 The war is the same as the war out there in the street.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 It is a war in terms of what many come from.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 You understand, it\u2019s a war.\u00a0 And so to have someone to embrace you and show you that there’s a new way of life that we can have, and we can love each other versus fighting and trying to take from each other.\u00a0 That there is a way of life through Christ Jesus who saved us to move on to have a better way.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Because the alternative is me, my agency, a parole and probation agent, and sporadic help from the family and from friends in the community.\u00a0 You are the alternative.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 Exactly.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 You are the alternative to government.\u00a0 So who are people who are going to buy into that person who needs assistance coming out of the prison system, that mother who’s trying to reconnect with her kids, who’s trying to shake drugs, that guy who’s trying to find work.\u00a0 It’s either me or it’s the faith community.\u00a0 Who would you pick?<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 I think they should pick their faith.\u00a0 The reason why I say this you go through the faith because you get some type of spiritual guidance.\u00a0 See we can\u2019t do it without that.\u00a0 You got to surrender, you got to submit.\u00a0 And then when you do that openly, you’ll be tested.\u00a0 And people are going to talk against you and think you’re not doing the right thing.\u00a0 Then you just go back and say, “You know what, shoot, that ain’t nothing, [PH] these what’s worse than this.”\u00a0 So then you’re okay.\u00a0\u00a0 You stay on that path.\u00a0 Keeping going through it.\u00a0 Things not going to happen when you want.\u00a0 But like I say, it’s going to happen on God’s time.\u00a0 He know when He want it to happen for you.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 One of the points that I wanted to make in terms of the faith community is that we’re also talking about the provision of food, sometimes the provision of shelter, clothing, for job interviews, help for to get a job interview.\u00a0 There’s a wide array of services.\u00a0 Some of the institutions are providing drug counseling, Alcoholics Anonymous programs.\u00a0 So it’s just not the embracement, it’s just not the encouragement, it’s the provisions of programs.\u00a0 A lot of the mentors are driving the mentees to different job interviews.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 Exactly.<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 Those are the things that we \u2026 that our faith initiative program has in place.\u00a0 I facilitate drug abuse and coming into a new way of life.\u00a0 Going into \u2026 providing job interviews for them, providing a list of job places for them to go to apply for new jobs. We have a program set up where we actually talk to them about what they need to — how they need to dress, how they need to put their self together, how they present their self in different programs.\u00a0 So what we’re trying to do is just show people that there is love out there, and we want to love you.\u00a0 We want to bring you back and come in and come together as one so that this world can be a better place than it is.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Why is the street so powerful, Artis?\u00a0 Why does the street overwhelm \u2026 in some cases, the faith-based institutions [PH] like call of the street.\u00a0 I’ve talked to people who have said, “Kicking drugs was easy, kicking the corner, kicking the street was impossible.”<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 Kicking drugs are never easy.\u00a0 See, he said earlier, love.\u00a0 The streets don’t show you love.\u00a0 Streets show you support, or getting something fast.\u00a0 But when people start being treated with love, that’s something we all need and we all crying for, we all wanting.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 James, how do we convince the average person that this is something they want to get involved in?\u00a0 How do we convince people out there with money, people out there with jobs, people out there who could be volunteers?\u00a0 How do we get them to cross that bridge and to come and work with people coming out of the prison system?<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 What we would really like for people to do is come out and sit with us and talk about what we are really doing.\u00a0 Come out and actually go to our meetings that we provide to show the people, show them some success stories, and things of that nature to turn their thinking around. There are people out here that are crying for help.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 But if we don’t have anybody in place to help them, then we’re going to be lost.\u00a0 It’s going to be a lost battle.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Well I think both of you are an inspiration.\u00a0 Both of you have told a story of redemption.\u00a0 Both of you had told a story of struggle.\u00a0 And now that you here as taxpayers, not tax burdens, now you’re here as solid citizens.\u00a0 And I think that’s one of the most important things. Artis, we only have just a couple seconds left.\u00a0 What would you say to the person who is considering getting involved in the faith community?<\/p>\n
Artis Thomas:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 I’d say, “If you was an ex-felon like I was and you really want to change, don’t try to change yourself.\u00a0 Plug into something, get you a mentor, find you a church, and just wait it out.”<\/p>\n
James Fulmer:\u00a0 I think we just need to just give God all the praise and honor for what our faith-based program is putting out there.\u00a0 And it’s going to work and it’s going to get better.<\/p>\n
Len Sipes:\u00a0 Gentlemen, thank you.\u00a0 I really appreciate you being on the show.\u00a0 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for watching as we discuss that extraordinarily important issue.\u00a0 The power of faith, in terms of helping people coming out of the prison system.\u00a0 Watch for us next time as we address another very important topic in today’s criminal justice system.\u00a0 And please, have yourselves a very, very pleasant day.<\/p>\n
[Video Ends]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DC Public Safety Television Show–Faith Based Programs for Offender Reentry Television show at\u00a0http:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/video\/2012\/09\/faith-based-initiatives-for-offender-reentry-dc-public-safety-television\/ http:\/\/media.csosa.gov\u00a0(CSOSA social media website) http:\/\/www.csosa.gov (CSOSA website) http:\/\/www.lamontcarey.com\/ [Video Begins] Len Sipes:\u00a0 Hi and welcome to DC Public Safety.\u00a0 I’m your host, Leonard Sipes.\u00a0 Today’s program is on the Faith Community and their involvement in terms of offenders coming out of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,18],"tags":[143,144],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-basedinitiatives","category-reentry","tag-faith-based","tag-offender-reentry","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pBoKk-eC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":934,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions\/934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}