JASMIN SHAH
Locked up, locked out
For the church, poverty and criminal justice are connected
By Ryan P. Cumming A
s a formerly incarcerated person, Kim Wilkins knows the challenges. Finding stable employ- ment, oſt en a parole or probation requirement,
“takes eff ort,” said Wilkins, a member of Bethel Lutheran Church, Chicago. “You have really got to want it.” T e job search can be intimidating for people leaving
prison or jail with few skills and little education. Aſt er serving their time, they enter a world where employ- ers may refuse to hire them, public housing is denied to them, and only a minimal safety net exists to aid their reintegration into society. T e help they need to reinte- grate is oſt en inadequate, when it exists at all. Wilkins’ story is far from unique. In 1980 about
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www.thelutheran.org
Kim Wilkins (photo at left) is a Bible study leader at Bethel Lutheran, Chi- cago, a church where the former inmate has found support and hope.
470,000 people were released from prisons. By 2008 that number had climbed to 735,454, says Michael Pinard, a law professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. T e steep rise in the number of people incarcerated
led the ELCA in 2013 to adopt the social statement “T e Church and Criminal Justice: Hearing the Cries” (www.
elca.org/socialstatements). T e statement encourages congregations to minister with and advocate for people in the criminal justice system, including returning citizens whose economic prospects are bleak. Research indicates that people who have been incar-
cerated are less likely to fi nd stable employment and earn up to 40 percent less money during their lifetimes than those never incarcerated—even when wages lost during incarceration aren’t considered. Incarceration makes economic mobility (growth in
wages over a lifetime of working) a near-impossibility, says Bruce Western, a sociologist at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Aſt er people have served their sen- tence, they remain vulnerable to joblessness, poverty and homelessness for years to come. Today many religious institutions, nonprofi ts and pub-
lic offi cials question why so many barriers to reintegra- tion exist for returning citizens. Why do so many people leave incarceration only to enter a world of poverty? One factor is the stigma that follows conviction. Not
only do former prisoners oſt en lack job-competitive skills, they are hampered by the reluctance of employers to hire them. Recognizing the importance of “allowing
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