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Becky had her work cut out for her. Or rather, God did. “I took this job with no former criminal justice experience,” Becky admits. “My only qualification was having spent months building an image on the inside of me from God’s Word. I knew I had THE BLESSING upon my life. I also knew that He would bless whatever I set my hands to do. “In John 5:19, Jesus said that He could do nothing except what His Father showed Him. That was my road map. Each time I was faced with a problem, I asked Father to show me what steps to take. I had to receive them by faith, believing that the Greater One who lived in me would reveal His witty ideas.” One of the first things Becky did was form a faith-based leaders’ meeting at the police station, where faith leaders from various denominations learned about the needs of schools, neighborhoods, foster care, reentry, homelessness and more. Then, as a result of what they learned, church leaders found out exactly how to involve their congregations. During a time when tensions surrounding the police were high, for instance, they formed an Adopt-a-Cop chapter. More than 1400 community members signed up to pray daily for the officers. Becky also had the idea to study the times of day when most crimes occurred. “I found that in the downtown area, the peak time for crime was 2-4 a.m.,” she says. “When I shared this with the sergeant in charge of scheduling, he said that the downtown shift ended at 2 in the morning. He scheduled extra patrols for the next two hours. In six months, 64 arrests had been made during those times. Probation vs. Jail “To reduce recidivism, I formed a group which included judges, probation and parole administrators, mental health professionals and criminal justice experts to decide what intervention was needed,” says Becky. “After seeing a video of a program used in Georgia, we decided to do something similar and established what was called the Day Reporting Center. It provided a rehabilitative probation program instead of jail for felony offenders with addictions, and had three phases which lasted 12 to 15 months. The program included education designed to address addiction, relapse prevention, life and job skills. It was the first probation program of its kind in Tennessee. “After we developed the blueprint, I realized I only had money to pay for a program manager, a therapist, building rent and educational materials. We also needed nine more facilitators to run it each week. Once again, I turned to God for the answers. I went to our community to talk about the program and found agencies that agreed to provide educational programs on a weekly basis and not charge us anything. “Still, we needed someone with job-skill training to help the reentry population. I learned that Goodwill® Industries was a leader in this field. I made an appointment with the CEO of our local Goodwill. He didn’t have what we needed, but he offered to create a full-time position for us. I nearly wept. That was nothing but God’s favor.” * * * * article continues on p. 20 * * * * BVOV : 19