CBI Launches Nationwide Reentry Program for Prisoners

This year, a prison outreach ministry is launching a nationwide reentry program for prisoners entirely focused on helping its inmate students successfully transition from prison back into their communities.

By Kenneth Chan, Tuesday, February 22, 2005

This year, a prison outreach ministry is launching a nationwide reentry program for prisoners entirely focused on helping its inmate students successfully transition from prison back into their communities.

For more than 20 years Crossroad Bible Institute (CBI) has been preparing prisoners for release by providing reentry education during incarceration. With an estimated 650,000 prisoners being released this year, CBI reports that the need for its Reentry Program is greater than ever.

“Released inmates need help finding a job, securing housing, locating a church and getting established,” CBI reported. “Without reentry assistance inmates face higher recidivism rates, rates that alone prove the need for both reentry education and reentry assistance.” Research shows that 75 percent of released inmates return to a life of crime.

CBI President, Dr. David Schuringa, has long anticipated the Reentry Program and is excited to see it implemented. "It's been a dream of mine to have a reentry ministry at Crossroad that can strengthen our in-prison educational focus,” said Schuringa. “This new program fits the bill."

According to CBI, its Reentry Program will help its graduates from coast to coast stay on the straight and narrow by helping them make a smooth and successful transition into society, resulting in safer communities with reduced criminal activity.

“CBI will connect inmate students with suitable reentry agencies in the area of their release,” the ministry reported. “CBI will also be a boon to reentry agencies by providing them with promising candidates. Requests for reentry assistance have already begun to pour into CBI's office.”

Through personalized, interactive correspondence courses, Crossroad Bible Institute prepares prisoners for release by providing in-depth mentorship in a faith-based program. Prisoners can continue in the five-year program no matter how many times they are transferred, and even at home upon release. CBI's instructors correct the students' lessons, which focus on reentry issues, and write personal letters of encouragement to the inmates.

"The new reentry program will increase the effectiveness of our educational programming," said Schuringa, "by providing a structure to help inmates put into practice the faith-based principles they learned."

According to CBI, over 30,000 inmates everywhere are “taking a ride on a spiritual journey” with the ministry to meet and develop a relationship with Jesus Christ.