School of Social work teacher steps in to assist a formerly incarerated man start a new life

DeeEllen Davis

   Feb. 12, 2008 -  For all practical purposes, Buddy Stapleton had been swallowed up by the prison system and forgotten.

     A native of West Virginia, Stapleton moved to Hammond as a youth. But the truth was his real home had become a jail cell. Stapleton spent at least half of his 52 years in one prison or another.

     During his last stint behind bars at the Pendleton Correctional Facility northeast of Indianapolis, he did not have a visitor – not a friend, not a family member, not anybody from outside the prison walls – in more than 10 years.

      Then while at work inside the prison one day in January 2006, Stapleton received an unexpected call: he had visitors.

     Waiting for him were DeeEllen Davis, an adjunct faculty member of the Indiana University School of Social Work and Paula Easley, a fellow member of Wesley United Methodist Church, located on Indianapolis’ Westside.

      The two women were part of the church’s 10-member Faith Care Team, whose mission was to work with an inmate upon his release.

     Faith Care Teams are part of the Faith in Community Ministry program created by the United Methodist Church and Choices Inc., a local social service agency.

     The program is a prison to community re-entry transition service that can be provided by any congregatin interested. The idea is to link offenders with congregations as they prepare to leave prison. The church members in turn help the person start a new life as they leave prison and return to the community.

     Davis had heard of the Faith in Community Ministry program from a friend, Mary Z. Longstreth, a social worker and director of the program. Davis found the care team idea intriguing because it spread the responsibility of assisting the former inmate among a team of people, thus ensuring no one individual would be left to do all the work.

     Davis brought the program to the attention of the church to see if its members might be interested and found a number of people willing to help. “The reason was their life had been touched by incarceration,” Davis said

      In one case, a woman had a grandson in prison in Florida. He was too far away for her to help, but felt if she helped someone here, one day someone might help her grandson. Another person had a daughter from a previous marriage serving time in prison.

     Prison still carries a stigma and thus people don’t readily admit to having a relative behind bars, Davis realized. But by her bringing the subject up, people felt it was okay to talk about their own experiences, too, she noted.

     After deciding to create a team, the members talked over who they didn’t want to work with – someone convicted of child molesting – for instance.

     They also presented programs at the church, including showing a video about the impact incarceration can  have on a family to church members, to help explain why the team was about to take up the challenge of working with an offender.

     In picking Stapleton the team found an individual who was more than ready to put his prison life behind him.

       Stapleton was born in West Virginia where his father was in and out of the home and occasionally found himself living with other relatives. His mother eventually moved her family to Hammond, Ind.

     Stapleton didn’t fare well in Indiana. By the time he was 14, he was addicted to crack cocaine and heroin. When he wasn’t in prison, he would return to his old neighborhood in Hammond and soon be in trouble again. Stapleton acknowledges “making a lot of bad choices.”

        This time Stapleton vowed his life would be different upon his release.

      “He changed his heart and soul,” Davis said. Stapleton knew he had wasted much of his life and told his new friends, “I don’t’ need to be like this.”

     Stapleton realized the Faith Care Team presented an opportunity he had never had before – a helping hand as he got his life together after his release. “I had nothing like this before,” Stapleton said of the team’s assistance that helped him make a new start in life.

       Instead of returning to northwestern Indiana, he came to Indianapolis.

      The first task for team members was to develop a relationship with Stapleton, a step which prompted Davis and Easley to meet with Stapleton while he still at Pendleton.

     When Stapleton mentioned the little community he was from in West Virginia, he was surprised when Davis said she knew where it was. “It turned out he was from southwestern West Virginia,” Davis said. “He was born in the same hospital my husband was.”

     When he named a little town, Davis named the next one down the river. “He named the next holler and I named the next holler,” Davis said. The two sat there and laughed in surprise.

     “His first weeks were so incredible,” Davis said of his new life in Indianapolis. The first tasks of the team were to re-introduce Stapleton to a world that had changed during the time he had been in prison.

      He had to be shown how to use a cell telephone. He was overwhelmed by having choices, Davis recalled. Someone offered free tickets to an Indians baseball game at Victory Field, but the idea of sitting in such a big crowd was too much and Stapleton turned down the offer.

     Upon his release, the team and Buddy had worked out a contract. He knew what was expected of him and what to expect from team members, Davis said. Little by little, his new life took hold.

     This April Stapleton will mark his second anniversary out of prison. He has a job, an apartment, the kind of life he could only dream about in prison.

     A year after his release, the Stapleton’s faith care team was disbanded. He still has their support though as well as that of other church members. He can’t say enough about the people who extended him a helping hand when he needed it.

     His experience with the faith team led to him to offer a piece of advice to other people as they think about life after prison: “Never give up on your dreams, never give up on what you want out of life.”

     For her part, Longstreth is convinced there are any number of offenders that could benefit from Faith Care Teams just as Stapleton did. She knows that there is a “fear factor,” for some people working with an inmate.

     She also believes the program can help formerly incarerated persons meet crucial dates once they are released.

     National statistics indicate that if a former offender remains out of prison for three years, the chances of them not committing another offense and returning to prison are 70 percent or better.

     If three years is a major benchmark then five years is a hallmark point, Longstreth noted. After five years, a formerly incarerated person is no more likely to find himself in prison than anyone else.

     For more information about the Faith in Community Ministry program, call Longstreth at 317-205-8255 or by e-mail at mzlongstreth@choicesteam.org.

     Written by Rob Schneider, Indiana University School of Social Work, (317)-278-0303, robschn@iupui.edu.