Statistics show that children of offenders are six times more likely to
commit a crime and be imprisoned. It is estimated that by the year
2015, there will be over 6 million people incarcerated in the United
States alone…up from 1.7 million today. Programs to meet the next
generation are not making a measurable impact. The pressures on youth
today are so great and seemly insurmountable. They yearn for the
material things like clothes, cars, and unbelievable amounts of money
that their sports heroes have. When these unattainable dreams fall
short, they turn to worldly pleasures. This leads them away from Christ
and to a world of sex, drugs, alcohol, and crime.
Welfare, crime, prison overcrowding, and recidivism help create a
vicious cycle in which juvenile offenders at age 14 often become
hardened criminals by age 21. They leave behind more children to grow
up with no authority figures and little moral support. Inner city youth
make up a major portion of the more than 800,000 children of
incarcerated adults. Because of the hardened lifestyles they are
usually forced to exist in, their survival is often predicated by their
families and community role models who are likely already part of the
cycle.
In
order to change ones priority and purpose, ones heart must be changed
first. In Jeremiah 18:6 the Lord declares, "Behold, like a clay in a
potter's hand, so are you in My hand." Just as it is easier to form and
mold a clay pot before it has hardened, it is also easier to establish
in youth a love of God, themselves, their families, and their neighbors
by exposing them to Christ before being contaminated by their
environment.