Prophetic Redemption

This chapter builds upon a gap in the field of criminology by investigating how CRS and LA Voice, as umbrella faith-based community organizing groups, shaped the social integration of former gang members and the formerly incarcerated. CRS and LA Voice’s contrasting religious traditions shaped how they facilitated members’ participation in community organizing. LA Voice leaders drew from Catholic theologies and practices and a relationship-based model of community organizing to foster members’ civic participation. This approach is termed pastoral prophetic redemption. By contrast, CRS leaders drew from the historical Black Protestant church’s theologies and practices and an issue-based model of community organizing to foster members’ civic participation. This approach is termed insurgent prophetic redemption.

“Imagine a Circle with No One Outside of It”

This chapter examines how Homeboys LOC members engaged in LA Voice’s style of pastoral prophetic redemption. Homeboys LOC leaders drew from relationship-based community organizing principles, such as fostering racial and religious “diversity” and giving a “voice” to those on the margins, in ways that built relationships with elected officials and partnerships with nonprofit organizations and that advanced Homeboy Industries’ mission of providing services and employment to at-risk and formerly incarcerated people. Homeboys LOC members, in turn, drew from the discourse of recovery to construct the meaning of community organizing, such as by making good through testimonies—though leaders deprivatized such testimonies in ways that advanced Homeboy Industries’ public profile more than it publicly held elected officials accountable.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the main argument of the book and then telescopes out to examine how the two cases of prophetic redemption fit within the broader landscape of contemporary changes in civic activism among the formerly incarcerated. It argues that some are resistant to accept the fact that formerly incarcerated people can engage in civic and political action as a form of social integration. However, it also argues that neoliberal, elite actors are attempting to interpellate formerly incarcerated activists’ efforts for nefarious purposes. It finishes by considering the agency of formerly incarcerated persons in constructing meaning from the postincarceration experience and in using civic activism to make good.

Returning Citizenship

This chapter examines how members constructed being “returning citizens” through their experiences with community organizing. It argues that “returning citizenship” is a form of “cultural citizenship” and that narratives of participation in community organizing shape the construction of such citizenship. Most respondents drew from two main narratives, cultural deficit narratives and structural barrier narratives, to articulate community organizing participation. Cultural deficit narratives described households and neighborhoods as lacking collective efficacy—characterized by absentee parents, gangs, violence, drugs—while structural barrier narratives framed social problems as structural—due to unjust laws, poverty, housing, education, or mass incarceration. Most respondents drew from these narratives to describe how community organizing built relationships that provided social support—even kinship—to foster collective efficacy and overcome structural barriers. Returning citizenship rearticulated dominant, individualistic notions of citizenship (i.e., being “positive” and “productive”) into collective notions.

“There Is Tension in Democracy”

This chapter examines how FORCE members engaged in CRS’s style of insurgent prophetic redemption. FORCE leaders translated Alinsky-influenced community organizing principles, such as “power” and “self-interest,” and practices, such as “elevator speeches” and “one-on-ones,” in ways that resonated with members’ experiences on the street and in recovery. FORCE members, in turn, drew from recovery to reconstruct the meaning of community organizing; they drew from recovery’s ritual verbal displays, such as “check-ins” and “testimonies,” to turn monthly meetings and one-on-ones into settings that allowed them to give back and perform being reformed. Last, CRS organizers deprivatized members’ efforts at personal reform, such as personal testimonies, for collective and political action.

Making Good through Prophetic Redemption

This chapter examines how former gang members and the formerly incarcerated narrated becoming involved with faith-based community organizing. Respondents’ narratives contrasted their backgrounds in gangs and drugs with their efforts to experience personal reform; they had been in rehabilitation, and made efforts to “give back” to their community, through highly personal interactions—such as mentoring—in order to “make good” and distance themselves from their past. Their personal efforts to make good led them to become involved in a range of civic participation, and provided a bridge to involvement in collective and political action.

The Incorporation of Faith-Based Organizations into Criminal Justice Reform

This chapter draws from a social movements perspective to examine how 1990s-era probation privatization contests reshaped the penal field in ways that led CBOs and FBOs to become more deeply incorporated in criminal justice reform efforts. As neoliberal think tanks aggressively promoted transferring probation activities to for-profit firms, the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA)—a CSG-related organization representing probation officers—fended off such threats by building public-private partnerships with CBOs and FBOs. The CSG and APPA still sought to preserve the influence of elite civic organizations in criminal justice reform. However, once seated at the table of criminal justice reform, faith leaders participated in both pastoral and insurgent displays of prophetic redemption. The efforts of CRS/FORCE and LA Voice/the Homeboys LOC trace their origins to these evolving contests over criminal justice reform.

Introduction

This chapter presents the concept of prophetic redemption—expanding the boundaries of democratic inclusion to facilitate the social integration of those furthest on the margins—in relation to the formerly incarcerated. It frames the two cases in this book—the Community Renewal Society’s FORCE project and the LA Voice/Homeboy Industries–affiliated Homeboys Local Organizing Committee—as examples of prophetic redemption. It presents the book’s argument: that faith-based community organizing (for and among the formerly incarcerated) fosters pastoral and insurgent displays of prophetic redemption; that personal reform is an essential component of prophetic redemption; and that prophetic redemption produces returning citizenship. It sketches the historical origins and development of prophetic redemption in twentieth-century America in relation to new abolitionism, the Chicago School of sociology, the rise of the punitive state, the rise of Alinsky-style community organizing, and the racial and religious diversification of post-civil-rights community organizing efforts. It ends with a description of the book’s subjects (former gang members and the formerly incarcerated), a summary of how the author built relationships with his subjects, and an overview of the book’s goals and aims.