Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Living in the buckle of the Bible Belt, I'm pretty used to hearing diatribes about how we need more capital punishment, more heavy-handed prisons, and more "law and order". If the subject ever comes around to sex offenders, I tend to brace myself for the inevitable tirade about how these people need to be shot on sight, executed on TV, or made to play whatever sick game the speaker's compassionless mind can conceive.
Imagine my surprise then, when I read this article, about a man right here in Oklahoma who's trying to do something real and positive for sex offenders:
"It hurts me to see that some people don't understand what we’re doing here," Wright said. "We're trying to help these men establish a new life. Everyone deserves a second chance."
Wright is housing eight registered sex offenders on his property about two miles north of Chandler. He said he's been doing it for more than two years without a complaint from the community until he started to build a sewer lagoon that angered some of his neighbors.
...
During the day the men work for his company, Wright Way Homes, building houses on site to be sold and moved to another location. All proceeds go into his foundation to fund the ministry, he said.
The men don't earn a paycheck. Wright said they work for room and board, to cover any past court fines and keep up with any other expenses they may have incurred. When they graduate from the program a year later, they're given two months wages to help them get started, he said.
While there, they’re required to attend Bible study, Wright said.
Patrick Rantz, 45, said no one was willing to help him when he was released from prison for child molestation. He said he would have been homeless had Wright and his wife, Rose, not accepted him in their ministry.
"When you’re a registered sex offender, no one is willing to help you and they treat you like you’re not human," Rantz said. "I felt hopeless before I came here, but now I’m rebuilding my life."
Rantz, an Air Force veteran, said he plans to get financial aid and return to school.
...
Wright said he thinks residents have nothing to fear because the men in his program are better supervised than the 83 others in the community. He said he can't guarantee the safety of everyone, but he feels that as long as he's doing God’s will, positive things will happen.
It's this last part that really gets me. I've lost count of the number of Bible-thumpers (note I didn't say Christians) who engage in the what I think of as "the cruel punishment imagination game"... where the goal is to come up with something even more torturous than the previous person that "we" as a society can or should do to sex offenders (and even run-of-the-mill criminals). But it is vanishingly rare to come across someone who takes Jesus' words to heart and actually puts them into action:
The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
-- Matthew 25:40
In the meantime, as a linked article describes, his neighbors are attempting to get his ministry shut down or forced to become a licensed care facility with counselors and the whole shebang, the extra cost of which would likely shut him down. In other words, what they want is for these people to receive no help whatsoever, no guidance, and be at the maximum risk for re-offending.
I don't know how to go about it, but it's suddenly become very important for me to meet Tom Wright and at the very least, shake his hand.
Posted by Tom, 2/10/2010 7:37:52 AM (Permalink). 0 Comments. Leave a comment... |