PREP, the Partnership for Re-Entry Program, established 2002, is a non-profit organization that seeks ways of improving the successful re-integration of parolees back into society, by providing them with the resources and support they need in the first days and weeks of release from prison. PREP offers congregations and faith-based parishioners the opportunity to provide aftercare to incarcerated men and women.
The goals of the program are to assist selected participants and their families with support groups during the transition process from prison to re-integration into their communities: spiritual, family, and civic into which they are paroled. Mentor support groups in collaboration with the participants develop workable paramenters and objectives to assure the highest possibilities for a successful re-entry into society and to reduce recidivism.
PREP is a ministry of Prison Re-Entry based in the Office of Restorative Justice, Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Funding is provided by grants and donations. The Partnership for Re-Entry Program (PREP) was established in 2002.
The difficulty PREP faces is dealing with the overwhelming needs of the more than 50,000 people living in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles who are on parole. Los Angeles County comprises approximately 12% of the population of California and is home to 34% of parolees from the state prison system.
Sister Mary Sean Hodges, OP spent nearly forty years as an educator in various elementary and high schools staffed by her Congregation, the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. Seeing a need in the area of Prison Re-Entry, Sister broadened her order’s primary ministry of school teaching to work full-time in this new apostolate.
Sister Mary Sean teamed with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’s Office of Restorative Justice in 2002.
“It is said that no-one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” -Nelson Mandela
The Office of Restorative Justice, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, provides pastoral care for offenders, victims, and families of both. We employ education and outreach to effect changes in public policy and to transform the criminal justice system. We are a faith-filled community of hope who witness and offer by our ministry compassion, love and healing justice to those affected by the criminal justice system: victims, the incarcerated, and families of victims and offenders.
The Office of Restorative Justice is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization. We provide personal and spiritual support to incarcerated men and women, their families, and to victims of violent crime.
