A What-If Scenario

Suppose you had a young friend, maybe someone for whom you babysat a good deal, someone you mentored, or someone you taught or coached, who -- as many kids in his/her same unfortunate environment do when they get a little older -- made tragic and destructive decisions (perhaps armed assault, manslaughter, drug trafficking, etc. -- pick one or name another) that landed them in prison with a lengthy sentence but one that most likely will be reduced. Obviously, you care about your friend a good deal, but at the same time, you're not in your friend's inner confidences and not necessarily one of the persons he or she is most apt to turn to for help.

When this person is released from incarceration, the most likely avenues for livelihood your friend (add in his/her child(ren)) will have, now with a permanent soiled police record, is going back to the same destructive practices that got him/her into his/her current predicament. Initially, your friend has made the promise-to-self not to go back to the same way of life, but as far as actually getting out, what are the real means there?

With all this in mind, that's not what you want for your friend. Certainly, there has to be something better than the dead-end job that Red (played by Morgan Freeman) received in The Shawshank Redemption that couldn't support one person, much less a person with children. Especially when a person's young. Prison's not a rehabilitator, but we/you/I, as part of The Church (if you include yourself in That), need to be the Love of God in an instance like this, right? I think this is a tough question that is rooted in many of our societal ills, but for us as individuals, we have to take on questions like these, that are real to us, on case-by-case bases.

What's the answer or what are some answers, then?

Because if I/you/we aren't going to try to do something, then sure as death, nobody else is, either.