John Sage is a graduate of St. Thomas High School, a Basilian school in Houston, TX. Also, John and his wife, Frances, attend St. Anne’s church, a Basilian parish.
Stabbed with three different knives, beaten with a statuette, then smothered with a plastic bag tied tightly round her neck, Marilyn died in horror. A nineteen-year-old man and his nineteen-year-old girlfriend took her life, then, her car. The unfathomable brutality of the crime caused John Sage, Marilyn’s older brother, to lose his grip on reality before he reached out to fi rmly grasp his Catholic faith.
The crime brought Sage close to emotional breakdown. Spinning in despair for months after his sister’s murder, Sage, the successful businessman, was unable to work, unable to eat, unable to sleep. Admitting his helplessness, he surrendered to God, and, at that moment, Sage felt the Holy Spirit lift him. Though his epiphany needed nurturing, in time, and with grace, Sage overcame his loss.
Five years after the mindless murder of his younger sister, the man who could hardly make it through a day without medication, established one of the most effective prison rehabilitation programs in the state of Texas – Bridges To Life (BTL). (www.bridgesto life.com)
The unusual ecumenical program brings victim volunteers into prisons to meet face-to-face with inmates scheduled for parole. In these meetings, victims convey their pain to perpetrators of crime. At the same time, victims are able to better comprehend the motives of those who commit crimes. Through these meetings, the participants (victims and inmates) are able to discuss in detail what crime has done to them. The curriculum requires 14 weekly meetings, which are held in a “small group” format in a confi dential setting.
BTL also makes use of facilitator volunteers, those outside the prison walls who have not been directly touched by crime. Together with victim volunteers, these facilitators allow inmates to publicly admit their criminal behavior as they confront society long before being released on parole. Every inmate participant must take responsibility for his or her crime within the confi dential small group. The faith-based program incorporates the principles of responsibility, accountability, confession, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, and restitution in a structured curriculum.
Over 4,500 inmates have completed the BTL program since the year 2000. Sage’s efforts are remarkably rewarding in that of the 3,100 BTL graduates who have been released from prison, only 1% have returned to prison because of additional violent acts of crime. So far, less than 14% of BTL graduates have returned to prison for commission of nonviolent crimes or technical violations of parole.
These are striking statistics when compared to the general recidivism rates throughout the country that indicate upwards of 40% to 50% of former inmates return to prison within three years of release.
Numbers, however, cannot convey the human stories that are at the heart of BTL. Behind the ciphers are people whose damage to society is a refl ection of the damaged society in which we all must live. Andy, a burglar, learned how to inject drugs from his mother. He was fi fteen at the time of the lesson. Daton, a murderer, was scourged with a wire coat hanger when he was nine by a father he only remembers as angry. Anita lived on the street till a man gave her food and a bed and a job. She was barely sixteen when she took up the oldest profession. Anita helped her boss expand the business by recruiting new employees. Enrique drove home drunk every evening after roofi ng houses. One Friday night, he ran his truck over a dog and into somebody’s house. He was lucky he only killed a dog. Sally shoplifted to buy what she needed; she needed a couple of hundred dollars a day just to feel “OK.”
Alongside the criminal statistics are comparable fi gures of victims. Again, the numbers do not convey their stories. Chris’ mother was murdered by three Hondurans who fl ed the country and escaped justice. Eighteen years later, they still have not been arrested. Barbara was raped the fi rst time at age three. She remembers there were many more times as she was growing up. Jesse was hammered nearly to death when he stopped to help two men and a dog stranded on a snow-covered highway in the Texas badlands. Annie was chained in an old attic to service male clients whose perversities she had no names for. She shared her quarters with a dog. Kathy and Lawrence had three children. Lawrence was killed when a drunken man decided to drive home from a bar. All of these “survivors” of crime have found a way back from despair through Bridges To Life.
Now, operating in 22 Texas correctional facilities, Sage hopes to extend the program into prisons outside of Texas. One Louisiana prison is using the curriculum and two prisons in Colorado will start the program this summer.
The end of June 2007 marks the fourteenth anniversary of Marilyn’s death – one story, now, with thousands of chapters in it.
Jesse Doiron teaches English at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. He began volunteering with the Bridges to Life Program in 2003. As a victim of attempted capital murder, Doiron goes inside Texas prisons to “put a face” on crime. In doing so, he shares with inmates his feelings about the ripple effect of criminality and the continuum of pain it visits upon society. In May 2007, Doiron received the Governor’s Restorative Justice Volunteer Service Award in recognition of his work with Bridges to Life.