Are Bad Guys Redeemable?
Charles "Roscoe" Heaton is a felon - a fact Christine VanDusen points out in her article, "Do You Believe in Second Chances?" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11/27/05). She notes that Roscoe at 17 pointed a pistol at a neighborhood kid and threatened to blow his head off. He was sent to jail - locked up for two years, four months and 24 days.
A child of a drug-addicted using mother and a car-thieving father, Roscoe was determined upon leaving jail not to repeat the sins of his parents. While incarcerated he earned an associates degree with honors and on release, applied for college without disclosing his prison time. Roscoe believed a degree would help him find "quality employment" the best way, experts say, to avoid joining the 47% of offenders who are reconvicted within three years of release. To his delight and surprise he was accepted to Emory in Atlanta. He took a work-study position, made some friends, and graduated with a 3.2 grade-point average.
Then he looked for a job. Intrigued by the law, he considered law school but quickly learned that his felony would impede his acceptance into the bar association. After inquiring into an exemption with no reply, he moved on.
He looked into insurance sales but convicted felons are prohibited from selling insurance without permission from the state's insurance commissioner. He was counseled not to bother.
Roscoe applied for white-collar jobs at numerous corporations but as VanDusen writes, "Focusing on those kinds of careers pitted him against other educated people without criminal pasts."
He considered a job in social work and interviewed for a position with troubled kids, but they had a strict policy: no convicted felons on staff.
Lowering his standards he applied for jobs as a grocery bagger at Publix and a fry cook at Burger King. Both conducted background checks and he wasn't offered the job.
As Roscoe himself said, "There are only so many times you can be backed into a corner before you snap." He made this comment after his heat and water were turned off in his apartment, and he ostensibly was living in his car. That same day he had stood at a busy intersection with a placard reading: Emory University grad, can't get work; need a job, food or money - need help . . .Thanks. He made $14.50 at that street corner.
Instead of snapping, he wrote a letter to over 100 well-known business people, organizations and celebrities. In it he wrote: "How are we (sic) like me supposed to better ourselves when we are treated like outcasts by society? Didn't I pay my debt to society by serving my sentence? I, myself, am losing hope and self esteem every day. I don't know what to do. I need help because I do want to be a productive member of society. I feel I could do some good if given a second chance."
In the last three decades in the U.S., the prison population has grown 600 percent, often due to harsher sentences imposed on a wider variety of crimes. Every year about 650,000 offenders are released from prison, and they find, as VanDusen admits, that there are few employment programs available and even fewer employers willing to take a risk. As Ryan King a researcher for the Sentencing Project comments, "The way things are, this notion that this is the land of second chances--that's a fairy tale."
This fairy tale reality can be applied to other areas in need of second chances. Let's take a working class family who lives from paycheck to paycheck. They are often uninsured, working more than one job, and still barely scraping by. If one of the parents loses a job, it gets harder and harder to make ends meet. The electricity gets cut off, and then the water. The rent is delinquent. Their alternative: move their small family into the car. The security deposit is then forfeited to the landlord. And now, the chance of getting back on their feet again slips farther and farther away. Not only are they in need of shelter, but a second chance - the opportunity to start anew, somehow, some way.
I realized when working on this sermon, there are two things that usher in second chances: The first is money. What do I mean by that? Well, if I look at those times when my friends, self or family have been in dire need of a second chance, all of us were lucky enough to have an extended family/community of some means. I don't refer to being wealthy mind you, but means, as defined by the ability to not fall under yourself if you are offered volunteer time or cash.
When friends' cars gave out as students and they needed the car to get to a job that helped pay the tuition, often, a parent or grandparent would step in offering a hand-me-down.
When friends were divorcing and losing half of their income, churches, friends and family helped pick up some of the cost associated with the need for starting over: bartering with childcare, helping with legal fees, leaving groceries on doorsteps.
When companies downsize and friends move in with friends, they are offering up their 2,400-square-foot house, not their 1,200-square-foot house for a family of now eight.
Undoubtedly, second chances rely on access to means of some kind.
The second factor needed is love - radical Love - the kind that attaches itself to our principle of the inherent worth and dignity of all people, and stands firmly on the side of believing that we human beings can begin again. But I say it is love because believing in someone's ability to begin again isn't enough. Often the kind of second chances most people are in need of take more than just the belief that they can do it. They need a radical love affixed to our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of all people that is supportive, encompassing, forgiving and present - active in their lives - not just passive in its call, but active.
This is hard for us sometimes. We want to be a little more hands-off. But when people are not enmeshed in a community of love, whether that is a church, neighborhood or a family of both love and means, second chances are not a possibility. It pains me a little that love is not active in our seven principles. It was considered part of the holy trinity of our Universalist tradition. Love, hope and courage were their rallying call. And indeed when addressing the need for help, and ability to help offer second chances to others, love needs to be glued onto our principle of the inherent worth and dignity of all people because those groups that are offering second chances clearly present themselves on the side of radical love and means.
In her article, "A Circle of Tough Love," Julia Morgan (Saturday Night - April 2005) points to a Mennonite organization that launched a radical and successful approach to helping sex offenders a second chance. She writes, "In 1994, Harry Nigh, a Mennonite pastor was asked to help a developmentally delayed pedophile, Charlie Taylor, on his release from prison. When he did, Harry started the first 'circle.' Consisting of himself and a small group of church volunteers, they assisted Taylor with housing and health care and met with police media and angry community members to let them know he was receiving help. They stopped in for social visits and made themselves available for phone calls around the clock. Once a week, they met formally to solve problems, celebrate small victories, (e.g., one month out, moving into his own place, birthdays) and most important to hold Taylor accountable for any risky behavior he might be considering, such as moving in with people who would be a negative influence, or deciding if he could handle walking near a school. They were even prepared to call police if necessary."
Today, 100 circles across Canada are run by 20 organizations. The concept is being emulated in four other countries. The goal is simple: help prevent anyone else from being victimized. It's working. A study done in 2004 showed that 70% of high risk offenders being helped by a circle are less likely to offend again, which is saying a lot as sex offenders rate of recidivism is usually 17%. As Julia Morgan points out, "It's a startling achievement that is based on the showing of love and support for society's most loathed criminals."
In Madison, WI at the Unitarian Universalist Church I grew up in, the congregation is involved in a Second Chance Program. They sponsor a homeless family for two years. Ostensibly they pay for their rent, and partner with the YWCA to offer the family counseling, job training, job placement, educational opportunities and the path to getting their life and their children's lives back on track. Members of the congregation serve as mentors offering their services once a week to compile budgets, a sympathetic ear and building on life skills. So far, they have successfully helped two families out of homelessness by melding active love and means infused with the inherent worth and dignity of all people.
At the end of November, I preached a simple message of gratitude and generosity. One which called us, as a church community, to address the issues of homelessness plaguing our city. 100 or so of you came to a discussion with the 3H task force eager to learn more about how we as a community could help. I'm grateful to say that after a little over a month's worth of research, we've come up with some options that we can get involved with. But this work has spurred on an additional call - one which was highlighted by Melanie Mroz and Brad Freeman. Last month, Brad attended a discussion/forum on poverty in which he sat next to a young man, Richard and his pregnant girlfriend Lisa, who had just received a break. They were homeless and the Department of Social Services had just issued them a studio apartment. But they had no means to furnish the apartment or obtain the material goods needed to nurture a new life.
So Brad sent an e-mail out to those of you who said you would be interested in helping with such second chance endeavors. I want to share with you some of the words, Brad wrote: "Our church in the past has adopted refugees from other countries. Back when we were helping the Planna's get settled from Kosovo, Melanie told me how ironic it was that we were willing to provide a deep support network for people from thousands of miles away, but not for people suffering in our own community. Richard and Lisa are refugees from addiction and homelessness and I propose that we adopt them and their child. Their success is probably a long shot, but without help, it's impossible.
"Melanie and I would like to coordinate the collection of things Lisa and Richard need to get their apartment set up from anyone willing to help out." He then listed everything from curtains, to kitchen tables, to dressers, parenting books, TV, maternity clothes.
It was a long list. And yet, as this email went out to folks on a Tuesday, by Saturday, everything was supplied. A second chance was offered to this young couple, and their apartment was warm and welcoming at the end of the day.
It is Scott's and my hope, and I know the hope of so many of you in this room, that we come to radically establish this church as offering more opportunities for second chances. In the next couple of months, the ministry team in conjunction with the 3H task force, School 22 volunteer and staff, and the social justice committee are investigating ways in which we might be able to offer a more permanent viable option at second chances such that we offered to Richard and Lisa. Because, without a certain amount of privilege, without means and love fused together, hundreds of thousands of people each year are left shunned, disgraced, abandoned, rejected and ultimately unable to cobble together a second chance no matter their will, intention or action.
100 years ago, William Channing Gannett, minister of this congregation, successfully launched and helped run a residence for wayward boys. The Gannett House was located across the street from the church - it was called the Gannett House. Gannett and the members of the church offered these boys a second chance. They educated, housed, fed and loved them.
In this month of January, it is striking to me that the very name for the month comes from the Roman God Janus, the god of new beginnings. A two-headed god whose particular gift was being able to look back into the past, while conversely seeing the future.
My hope is we can be charged with the gifts of Janus. Looking into our past to challenge and remind ourselves that second chances are a part of our heritage - a part of the lifeblood of this community - while seeing clearly before us our future, one that acknowledges the need for our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of all people, deeply infused with love and means - one that calls to us to remember and act on our roots - that indeed we can be a church of second chances. So may it be. Amen.
January 8, 2006