When Prisoners Return

Rating:
Summary: Help For A Loved One
Review: A wonderful guide and resource for helping returning prisoners.
The book made me aware of the daunting obstacles faced by those who have been released, and it gives practical advice on the steps to take to help prisoners back into society. Mr. Nolan speaks from personal experience in an easy-to-read style. He makes a powerful case that this problem should be a high priority
for us all, and that we ignore it at our peril.


Rating:
Summary: A wake up call
Review: My head had been in the sand and my prejugdices against the inprisoned were all too real until I read When Prisoners Return. I have been awakened to the reality that those who have satisfied their debt to society need our help to be reintroduced to their families, society, the community, the workplace, the Church, health care, and everything we who are free take for granted. This book not only addresses the problem of reentry, but provides solid, practical things we as individuals and the church corporately, can do to help ex offenders become productive members of society, and perhaps the next wave of leaders for their generation.

Rating:
Summary: Redemption and Reformation
Review: Pat Nolan's When Prisoners Return is an operating manual for church based organizations that are committed to helping ex-convicts successfully return to their own communities but not quite sure as to how to do it. Although it has faith as a major component of its program, much of the program deals with day-to-day issues such as helping the returning prisoners find a place to live, create resumes, get access to job interviews, etc. Additionally, the program's success is linked to the prisoner starting it prior to his or her release.

What it is not is a program that will appeal to the moral relativists who think that criminals are the victims of society who should be pitied. Rather, the book (a term I use loosely since it is only 60 pages of text and almost 80 more of good reference material and organizational information) places the status of the victim where it belongs: with the victim. The criminal is seen as someone who has made the wrong moral choice. There is no equivocation or relevance about right and wrong here, and that should appeal to Christians to whom morality still means something.

Additionally, it is not an eye-for-an-eye justice book either. Although quotes from both testaments are used, the healing and forgiving nature of the New Testament is emphasized; however, the cold hard reality that most ex-convicts should never be allowed to take advantage of those who are trying to help them is not ignored. But, help them we must!

Since faith and community are the focus of the help program described, it would seem that this book is better suited for churches in communities that have a "problem" with returning convicts. Church communities that have few or no occasions of returning convicts seem to be left out of the equation, and that is a shame although I certainly do not think it is the intent of the author to exclude them. Mr. Nolan's own example of his experience with the Angel Tree organization is an example of how church members who do not have a recurring returning prisoner issue can help. A chapter on limited and partial involvement for churches like the ones I described (or ones that might be hesitant to join in due to the very nature of the program) would be helpful in prodding them to at least try to help. A small seed might just germinate into a giant oak as a result. The references in the back can help one accomplish this goal, but one has to hunt to find the right ones.

Whether your church organization is interested in partial or full participation in helping prisoners, their families, and their communities, you should by this work.

Rating:
Summary: Ready or Not...
Review: This book opened my eyes to the fact that, whether we are ready or not, people are returning from prison, but it's up to us to decide what they return to. Will it be their old habits, old friends, and old neighborhoods that got them into trouble? Or will another avenue be offered to them with guidance, skills, and perseverance as their new habits? When a newly-released person needs to learn these new habits, the Church communities are a good place for them to seek help. This book gives all communities useful and practical tools on how to help with a long list of resources. It's always easier to learn from the resources provided in this book rather than each community having to re-invent and re-invest in the same old strategies.

The prisoners are coming and now we can be prepared to greet them with the tools they will need to stay out of prison.