Volunteers with a newly formed prisoner support group hope that better timing will keep local inmates from heading back to prison once released.
Chattanooga Endeavors CEO Tim Dempsey has worked with his staff and a growing list of churches to start Stephen's Table -- a prisoner intervention and support group that aims to better the lives of local inmates and their families in an effort to reduce recidivism.
"Most of the people incarcerated have no connection with the local communities," Mr. Dempsey said. "They feel like they're forgotten."
While Chattanooga Endeavors has worked with returning inmates since 1997 and provided education, job placement and other programs, Mr. Dempsey said a more effective way to help prisoners is to reach them before they're sent off to state and federal prisons.
That's the goal of Stephen's Table.
June marks the end of the first year of a two-year, $110,000 criminal justice program grant that funds the initiative.
The last year has been spent building a network of local churches to work with the program. In the coming months, volunteers will begin going to the Hamilton County Jail and Silverdale Detention Center in groups of four to meet with inmates awaiting sentencing.
Inmates who participate in the program will be given information and contacts for how to spend their time while incarcerated. Inmates' families also will receive guidance on available services and how to stay connected with their relatives.
Mr. Dempsey said inmates often walk into prison with no plan on how to better themselves and avoid coming back.
"What they're left with is taking advice from people who've never been successful about staying out of prison," he said.
For information* Call Chattanooga Endeavors at 423-266-1888 or visit www.chattanoogaendeavors.com
A 2008 study by the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University showed that only 42 percent of inmates received any visitation in the year before their release. The study, which followed Florida inmates for more than two years after they left the prison system, found that visitation "reduced and delayed onset of recidivism."
John Disterdick, a volunteer with Stephen's Table and board member of Chattanooga Endeavors, hopes that the work with individual inmates will yield results far beyond that one person.
"If we can help one person through our church, it might impact the lives of 20 people," he said.