Visit the Imprisoned
with Christ Crucified in 2025
with Christ Crucified in 2025
“Human dignity is not something we earn by our good behavior;
it is something we have as children of God."
US Conference of Catholic Bishops
it is something we have as children of God."
US Conference of Catholic Bishops
Detained and incarcerated persons often struggle with feelings of abandonment, hopelessness, and despair. Most are enslaved by their destructive pasts and the resulting harmful world views and beliefs. Many have no resources for faith, forgiveness, healing, conversion, and true rehabilitation, or don’t know how to access them.
Yet Visiting the Imprisoned is perhaps the most underrepresented Work of Mercy
by Catholics in the Diocese of Lincoln.
The diocese’s Apostolate to the Incarcerated consists of the priests assigned as facility chaplains and the few part-time volunteers who assist them (there are, additionally, an unknown number of individuals who privately engage in various forms of prison ministry without being connected to a community group or apostolate). The Nebraska State Penitentiary's Religious Coordinator has suggested there is a virtually unlimited need for help with spiritual and rehabilitative assistance.
"See, I make all things new."
Revelation 21:5
Revelation 21:5
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/pptmcspi16st.pdf
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Far from being merely a spiritual and emotional benefit to offenders, studies suggest that faith-based interventions and religious support, combined with rehabilitation programs and community reentry assistance and support, improve offender behaviors during incarceration and following community reentry (The Prison Journal, Vol 96, Issue 4, Saved, Salvaged, or Sunk: A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Faith-Based Interventions on Inmate Adjustment; 2016; and https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7205271/). The ripple effect is profound – communities are safer and children of offenders are less likely to engage in criminal behaviors, thus diminishing “generational” crime. In 2016, nearly 1.5 million minors had a parent in state or federal prison (https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/pptmcspi16st.pdf). |
"I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Mark 2:17
Mark 2:17
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Statistics help us understand the situation in Nebraska. The nine correctional facilities in the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS) held an average daily population (ADP) of 5,880 inmates in Fiscal Year 2024 – an increase of 308% over the past forty years – including 1,287 at NSP and 1,025 at TSCI; an increase of 25% is projected through 2030 (ref 1,2). Approximately 4 out of 5 inmates at NDCS facilities will be released some day (ref 3). The most recent 3-year recidivism rate – the longest period measured by NDCS – was 28.47% (ref 4). There are an additional sixty-three municipal and county jails throughout the state holding approximately 4,000 individuals at any given time, including 737 at the Lancaster County Jail (ref 5,6). Sentences at those facilities rarely extend beyond one year.
While religious affiliation of inmates is difficult to ascertain (it isn’t usually recorded at state and federal facilities and independent surveys are rarely permitted), a 2012 Pew Forum survey of prison chaplains from every state reported that, on average, chaplains believed Christians made up about two-thirds of the inmate populations where they worked, including 51% Protestants, 15% Catholics, and other Christian groups less than 2% (ref 7). References:
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https://corrections.nebraska.gov/
https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2012/03/Religion-in-Prisons.pdf
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Proclaiming spiritual liberty to captives
Our aim is to connect those who suffer with Jesus Christ crucified, that they may unify their suffering with his, and in so doing, experience the healing, hope, peace, and purpose that only he can bring.
In this inaugural year, our work will occur primarily at the Nebraska State Penitentiary (NSP), but also at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution (TSCI), the Lincoln Community Corrections Center (CCC-L), and the Lancaster County Community Corrections facilities. Our planned activities include assisting the Catholic chaplains at those facilities with the sacraments and other faith-promoting ministerial activities; assessing and identifying programming needs and opportunities; developing or introducing programs designed to facilitate hope and healing through Jesus Christ as revealed in the fullness of truth through the Catholic faith; potentially partnering with other community organizations in activities and programs designed to facilitate rehabilitation of the individual and reconciliation with victims (when possible), to prepare them for community reentry, and to reduce recidivism; and connecting inmates with community resources to assist with their successful and sustainable reintegration into society.
We are particularly excited about bringing Unbound spiritual deliverance ministry to the prisons and jails. Unbound is a model of prayer which leads the participant through a process of repentance, forgiveness, and renunciation of the emotional and spiritual baggage that significantly impede our living as children of God. To our knowledge, there is no such ministry occurring at correctional facilities in southern Nebraska.
To our knowledge, there is no movement of Catholic laity in the Diocese of Lincoln engaging in prison ministry to the extent we intend - a full-time lay apostolate to detained and incarcerated persons. We hope our efforts will bolster the lay evangelization movement to detained and incarcerated persons within the diocese, spurring the vitalization of volunteerism and Church-based prison ministry activity for years to come.
