New program aims to help Morgan Co. inmates learn life skills

New program aims to help Morgan Co. inmates learn life skills

By WHITNEY HOLMES
6 News Anchor/Reporter

WARTBURG (WATE) -- Each year in Tennessee, about 6,000 inmates are released into communities and around 3,600 of them will be back in prison within three years.

However, a new program by FOCUS Group Prison Ministries in the Morgan County Correctional Complex is working to reduce that number.

The program called FOCUS Christian Academy began this year. It's a two-year pilot program that teaches inmates the basics, such as managing money and healthy relationships.

"I was arrested when I was 18-years-old in 1994 for first degree murder. I am serving a life sentence," explains Jeremy Ingram, an inmate at the correctional complex.

Ingram has been behind bars for almost 15 years and for the first half, he lived selfishly. "My whole life consisted of trying to stay high and trying to fit in. Repentance and remorse was far from my thinking," he says.

After reading a sermon about seven years ago, something changed. "At that point, I realized that if anyone was going to change me, it was going to be God," Jeremy says. 

He started taking all the classes offered by the state, but they were missing something. They didn't teach the skills he'd need if he was ever released.

"I was locked up so young that I had no idea even how to go to a grocery store and buy food," Jeremy recalls.

That's where FOCUS Christian Academy comes in. Because the classes are faith-based, they aim to change not just what the men do but also how they think, so once they're out of prison, they stay out.

"If we can change this self-centeredness to Christ and other-centeredness, then it gives him the reason to want to do the right thing" explains Executive Director Steve Humphreys.

He says programs like his are lowering the number of inmates who end up back behind bars.

In fact, the state's recidivism level has dropped 10 percent in the past decade. That's good for the former inmates and communities, but also for the state's bottom line.

"I can tell you 10 to 12 guys who are doing really well, working in our ministry team," Humphreys says. "And that 10 or 12 guys is about $250,000 that the state is not paying to incarcerate."

Jeremy Ingram believes the academy is so successful because the skills learned run deep. The relationships the men form with their instructors show them that someone cares and challenges them to be a better person.

"It's principles that I don't have to wait until I get out to apply. I can start now and develop these habits that will make a new life for me now and once I am released," he says.

Jeremy is up for parole in 10 years and if it's granted, he believes he'll be ready to live a successful live beyond the walls.

FOCUS Group Prison Ministries will continue to support him in its "Beyond the Walls" transitional program, which can help him find and excel at a new job.