I’d like to get to the point: God changes lives.” Mike Ober of Bentonville shared this with a group of men gathered around a table at the Denny’s restaurant in Fayetteville.
They meet there at 6 a.m. one day a week.
Ober serves as a mentor for a man recently released from prison as part of the Pathway to Freedom program offered through the Arkansas Department of Correction. Austin Chatelain and Jerry Dudley join him in the important job.
“Just getting adjusted to life without drugs,” replied Darrin Burrough of Lincoln, when asked the traditional “How are you?”
For men who were incarcerated for five, 10, 20, 30 years or more, the “real world” seems like an alternate universe. A soft bed, cellphones, laundry, hamburgers and birthday presents all can be different and daunting.
“He’s a newlywed,” Ober said of Burrough, “and we told him, ‘Don’t give your wife anything with a cord on it for her birthday,’” he finished with a laugh.
Nick Robbins, Northwest Arkansas’ re-entry specialist for Pathway to Freedom, tells the story of one parolee who went to a Fuddruckers restaurant with his brother. The choices he had at the hamburger bar were overwhelming.
“He wasn’t used to making choices,” Robbins said. “He just came to get a burger.” RECIDIVISM TARGETED
“Pathway to Freedom is a Christ-centered, holistic service program that delivers educational, values based, pre-release, re-entry services to prisoners and ex-prisoners on a voluntary and noncompulsory basis,” reads the organization’s website.
The program includes 18 months of rehabilitation education in prison and one year of mentoring after release - although the men often stay friends, explained Robbins, who carries his own prison record.
The program includes not only addiction prevention and job training but also focuses on becoming a whole, Godly man - attributes such as integrity, responsibility, community, productivity, affirmation and restoration, he said. Classes focus on anger management, parenting, computer skills, finances and more.
Prisoners must complete an application for a space in the 200-bed program based at the medium-security unit at Wrightsville.
“God chose me (for the program),” Burrough said. “I wrote a letter to them asking about the program. The next week, I was walking through the doors at Wrightsville.”
“These are guys who want to be there,” Robbins said. “This group of men is taking responsibility for their lives - more than they did on the outside. They want to know how to live a good life because they’re getting out in a year or two. We teach them the gospel implications for how to live a good life.
“They’re up every morning and throughout the day, they are learning and serving,” he continued. “It’s not just some con.”
Upon release, two or three volunteer mentors are matched with the ex-prisoner. They meet with the man weekly and are available via phone 24/7. They talk through the challenges of life, big and small.
The mentors volunteer their time and receive training from Pathway to Freedom on setting boundaries and building healthy relationships with their charges.
The mentors work to keep these men from returning to prison. The program cannot list a recidivism rate because it has only operated for a year and a half, Robbins explained.
In Arkansas, 12.2 percent of those released were rearrested within six months, 24.8 percent within three years and 46.7 percent within five years, according to a 2010 recidivism study by the Arkansas Department of Correction.
Nationally, 67.5 percent were rearrested within three years, according to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service website.
“We celebrate small goals,” Robbins said. “If they make it 90 days, their mentors might take them out for a steak dinner.” LIFE OUTSIDE
As Burrough sat at that restaurant table recently, only his companions knew he was a four-time convicted felon who spent years in prison, the white, ill-fitting jumpsuit replaced by business casual, tattoos peeking out just like everybody else’s.
Burrough started his path during his senior year in high school, when he bowed to peer pressure and started taking drugs, he said. He quit school after the first semester.
Prior to his last 16-year commitment, he spent his life in and out of lockup in both Arkansas and Missouri. But during a stay at a county jail in Missouri, God changed his life.
“I was just tired of living the life I was living,” Burrough said. “I was sitting in the back of a cop car, and I said, ‘God, if you want me, come on,’
“I got hot, and then I was cold. I know I drove the cop crazy asking him to roll the window up and down.
“I don’t remember being booked in. I just remember laying down and going to sleep. I got a Bible and read it cover to cover. Then I came back to Arkansas for prison.”
As Burrough told his story, another mentor asked him about a man coming to do work at Burrough’s house - a man who just got out of prison.
“How will you handle the temptation (to go back to your old life)?” asked Dudley.
“He’s the only guy I knowwho is not doing anything,” Burrough replied. “I’ve known him for 20 years. He knows all my family. It’s his first time out on parole.
“But I want to help him like y’all are helping me. I want to pay it forward to someone who wants it.”
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
Men interested in mentoring have the opportunity to find out more next week. The program sponsors a “540 luncheon” at noon Thursday at the Golden Corral restaurant in Rogers. The “540” refers to the interstate from Missouri to Fort Smith that runs through Northwest Arkansas.
Mentors, parolees and graduates of the program meet for fellowship and to share information about the program, Robbins said. Some of the felons tell their stories.
A group of volunteers also travels to Wrightsville every few months for a recruitment rally and praise service.
Chatelain, one of the local coordinators, admitted feeling overwhelmed while in the prison. “We were surrounded by 200 men wearing white jumpsuits,” he said. “And you know they’re in there for a reason.
“But, soon, I felt at home there. The mask was off. They bared it all.
“They were so nice and gracious,” Chatelain continued. “They were filled with compassion.”
“We’re who we are, with the white number and all,” Burrough said. “Everyone’s screwed up. Everyone has issues. We’re just wearing it on our chests.”
Volunteers sit among the inmates and get to know them. They learn their names and where they are from, but they don’t talk about the felon’s crime.
“We take all crimes - murder, sex, robbery,” Robbins said, “and then we can build your reentry program around those crimes.”
Robbins said volunteers might ask the men questions like, “How can you show compassion today? Who do you need to forgive for the wrongs that happened to you?”
“They take responsibility for why they are there, how they got there, and they are sorry for it,” Chatelain said. “They want to change their lives.”
Jody Farrell, director of missions and lay mobilizations for CentralUnited Methodist Church in Fayetteville, led a praise service focusing on the godly trait of compassion, Robbins said of the April 12 trip to Wrightsville.
Some churches in Northwest Arkansas take the lead, supplying the project with volunteer mentors and financial support, Robbins said. More importantly, someone waits for the parolee and greets him at the door the first time he comes to church.
Central just came on board as a partner. Other core churches include Fellowship Bible Church in Rogers, First Baptist Church in Bentonville, Catalyst Church Northwest Arkansas in Bentonville and Cross Church throughout the region.
SUPPORT AND SUCCESS
“The system is not really set up for success,” Chatelain said. “The only possibility is to go back to the same life and problems.”
Prisoners come out of lockup with hand-me-down clothes, $100 cash and a salutation of “Don’t come back,” Robbins said. If a prisoner has no one to pick him up, the state will drive him to the bus station in Little Rock.
“But if they drop you off in the morning, and your bus doesn’t come until the afternoon … many guys would spend that $100 at the liquor store,” Robbins said.
“When Burrough was at Wrightsville, he had a ton of guys around him. He had a real good support group,” Ober said. “Now he’s in the real world, and there are no other guys. We all need that support group. He’s not the only one going through struggles.”
“They’ve been a big help, so I don’t go back to the same life,” Burrough said.
“We’re working with Darrin where the rubber meets the road.” Dudley, the third of the local coordinators, said.
“I was really good in prison,” Burrough said. “I had no disciplinaries on my jacket. One (prison official) told me, ‘This proves you can be good, but you choose not to be.’”
“He’s tried to fix his life several times,” Ober said. “He can’t do it. Only God can. And he’s no different than anybody else.”
Religion, Pages 6 on 04/20/2013