Springfield had come a long way, thanks to the courses he took in prison. When he got out, Hodges offered Springfield a spot in a transitional home. Hodges wrote letters to the Board of Prison Terms on Springfield’s behalf before he was released from prison on Nov. Springfield stuck with it and found that, “The lessons helped me learn the process of how anger started, showed me how to release anger in a positive manner and taught me it’s okay to be angry (and) how to release it.” The transformation is a whole process in life, it takes awhile.”Įx-prisoner Dujuan Springfield, 44, of Los Angeles, says that when he was in prison, “I started off writing to her and what she’d do is for free, and no charge to me, and she’d send me these courses.” “In this insight workshop I give, I say ‘OK what was it that you said? I can change my life?’ What’s that moment of transformation? And everyone can name one. “After that settles in for a bit, a person begins to say ‘Well, I can do something about that I can change my life’,” she said. They don’t take responsibility for what they did, she says, and when they face years in jail some of them come to the conclusion that they are never getting out. Hodges says many prisoners are angry and blame others. Once I’m in a gang, I’m challenged to do graffiti, do stealing, get a gun - and it usually ends up in some kind of violence.” “Then I cover it up with drugs, alcohol and join a gang. “If (I) don’t belong in (my) own family … then I will go in search of where I belong,” Hodges explains. PREP theory says that a person often ends up imprisoned due to harm they suffered when young that often led to quitting school, starting to use drugs and alcohol - even at age 10 or 11 - and hanging out with gang members to belong. “By going to the prison, it says to the people inside ‘You care enough about us to come visit us’ and that’s important,” Hodges said. She believes prisoners don’t believe in their own self-worth because of their backgrounds and their crimes. Hodges is most satisfied by developing personal relationships inside the prisons. “She’s touched and moved many more lives than she can possibly imagine, and she’s an inspiration to many, many people. “For many, many lives inside and out (of prison), including those who never even met her, they do the program and try to better themselves,” Waters said. Kevin Waters calls Hodges an agent of change. Of the prisoners she engaged with via her mail-in program and classroom programs, only 3% have returned to crime and to prison, according to PREP. Hodges, a Catholic school teacher for 40 years mostly in the Los Angeles area, taps those teaching skills to conduct in-person classes in prisons. But the outreach to inmates goes beyond the mail-in project. The lessons are mailed to inmates, who complete and return them to program staff at PREP, and they receive certificates upon completion. The courses in her program are designed to give inmates tools to change their attitudes and thought patterns. The fact that she’s able to do that - that she has that altruistic quality - speaks to her quest just to be of service.” ![]() “I’d venture to say, I don’t know this for a fact, she hasn’t been paid a great deal of money to do these things. “She helps people constantly, always trying to open or facilitate programs that can help mainly returning citizens,” Waters says, referring to inmates released from prison. PREP is an effort to provide in-prison coaching and self-development through mail-in courses, and has reached an estimated 40,000 prisoners nationwide, many of them serving life sentences. ![]() Waters later rose to the position of manager at the transition house and met weekly with Hodges, founder of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’s nationwide restorative justice effort, the Partnership for Re-Entry Program, or PREP. “She was instrumental in making that happen.” “Within three days, I was taken from that facility to one she was partnering with, and from there I was able to spend the next 52 days with my dad,” Waters recalls. But his parole agent knew someone who might be able to help, Sister Mary Sean Hodges, and Waters asked the sister if she could get him time with his father before he died. Waters wasn’t free to see his father who was sick with pancreatic cancer. He was one of them, not too long ago, doing 25 years of a life sentence in prison, and then sent to a transition house. Kevin Waters, CEO of the Dream Live Hope Foundation in Inglewood, helps prisoners who are re-entering society, including veterans and those who can’t afford the skyrocketing Los Angeles rental market.
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