"I Went Through it So You Don't Have To": Community Organizing for and Among the Formerly Incarcerated

Using ethnographic data from Chicago, this article examines how civil religion reworks state/citizen relations among the formerly incarcerated. Participant observation and interviews were collected at two sites: FORCE... [ view full abstract ]

Using ethnographic data from Chicago, this article examines how civil religion reworks state/citizen relations among the formerly incarcerated. Participant observation and interviews were collected at two sites: FORCE (Fighting to Overcome Records and Create Equality), a civic group of formerly incarcerated persons and former gang members, and Community Renewal Society, a larger, interfaith civic group that provided institutional backing for FORCE. Data collection occurred over eighteen months, as the two groups utilized faith-based community organizing to advance legislative reform (Illinois House Bill 5723/3061) expanding the sealing of criminal records. Findings suggest that faith-based community organizing, together with formerly incarcerated persons’ use of “redemption scripts,” can facilitate empowering social integration. First, Community Renewal Society engaged in “progressive prophetic activism” (Slessarev-Jamir 2011:4) to expand formerly incarcerated persons’ social rights. Second, FORCE members’ concern with “making good” (Maruna 2001:9-10) from past crimes motivated their participation in faith-based community organizing. Third, community organizer trainings enabled FORCE members to de-privatize their personal narratives for public testimony. Whereas research on religion in the post-incarceration experience has focused on rehabilitation and reentry programming, our findings suggest that civil religion can facilitate empowering social integration. Civil religion enables collective and political action by de-privatizing personal narratives.