When a person leaves jail or prison, the odds are greatly stacked against them.

Even though they have “paid their debt to society,” there are many prejudices, personal issues, and legal and financial challenges.

Most leave incarceration with a large financial debt, caused by legal bills and unpaid fines. This debt can be in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and is not forgiven. It may be challenging or nearly impossible to get a driver’s license. Finding a company that will hire them is very difficult at best. And finding a safe, affordable place to live can be almost impossible.

All these challenges are on top of the personal issues that face them. Recall, most people who are incarcerated have some form of mental illness. And most are also addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.

Many also have physical issues. In addition, for those who have been incarcerated for many years, they are way behind in the use of technology and social media.

When a person leaves incarceration, they may have little idea of exactly where they are going to live and find a job. They are not given many resources and contacts. So, they are left to their own ingenuity to try to find help.

All of these compounding issues can cause a person to revert to their old ways. Most end up being arrested and incarcerated within a year or two.

Recidivism is the word we use for people who re-offend and go back to jail. Being released and sent out on their own wit and skills can cause most people to do exactly that.

Our society is not designed to help people coming out of jail or prison. In fact, we make it harder for people to succeed. Our prejudices and closed doors create a vicious circle.

Imagine if there was a way to change all of this. What if we could evaluate people and educate them before they are released? What if we could help them find a safe and secure place to live on the very first night? What if we could connect them to mental and physical health services right away? What if we could help them enroll in addiction recovery? What if we could help them find a well-paying job?

What if we could surround them with a mentoring team that would be there to guide them when they need help the most? What if we could help them to live in safe, permanent, affordable housing? And what if we could connect them to a church so they could create a social network in a place that would accept them as their sister or brother?

The archdiocese’s Corrections Ministries is in the very early stages of launching a re-entry program that will one day be able to do all of these things. We have a long way to go before we are ready to help people. Right now, we are in the planning and fundraising stages. Our goal is to launch this program on a very small scale in a few counties outside of Marion County in 2026.

You will be hearing a lot more about this program in the coming months. If you are interested in learning more and becoming involved, please mark your calendar for Saturday, Oct. 11 to attend our annual conference. The topic for this year is re-entry. The conference will be held in Columbus. We will have speakers who are experts in this field. We hope to see you there.
 

(Deacon John Cord is the coordinator of Corrections Ministry for the archdiocese. For more information on supporting the office’s re-entry ministry, contact Deacon Cord at 317-432-6604 or by e-mail at [email protected].) †