In the year 2001, over 2 million, one percent of our population, are incarcerated. According to a study done at Columbia University, at the present rate of incarceration, twenty percent of our population born in 1997 will spend time in prison. This is an abomination. It is preventable. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ can turn the tide.
Churches working together in communities to mentor and meet needs can make an enormous difference.
Programs that provide aftercare and mentoring have proved successful. Instead of seventy to eighty percent recidivism, rates can be reduced to five to fifteen percent. The costs of these programs are minimal compared to the costs of warehousing bodies and witnessing their moral disintegration. Our government should be interested in subsidizing the cost of successful programs. Transition homes are needed as well.