An Overview of our Mission Field
More than 2.5 million
juveniles are arrested every year in America and 70% of juveniles
convicted of crimes have gone on to commit crimes again. With Our
U.S. prison population increasing 15 times faster than the general
population, the urgency for youth intervention has never been greater!
Statistics
tell us that over 80% of the people who ever come to Christ
do so by the age of 18. If we don't reach young people by
this age, our chances of reaching them later are very slim.
The battle for lives in their most decisive
years is not a ministry picnic - it is war. It is not 'practice'
ministry where a person makes his or her rookie mistakes
so he or she can be promoted to 'real' ministry - with adults.
This is the front lines.
Our ministry holds to this philosophy!
Where Do They Come From?
Most of the kids who commit crimes suffer from the
impact of a broken family, the lack of positive peers, and a cultural
epidemic of violence and abandoned morals. Juvenile correctional
institutions today are filled with kids from urban, suburban, and
rural America.
Regardless of where kids come from, the majority
of them will be going back to their communities, perhaps in your
neighborhood. We can choose to discard them, but we cannot deny
that Jesus Christ died for them. We must remember that those who
deserve love the least need it the most!
What Do They Need?
One study indicated that 94% of incarcerated youth
have never had one single positive adult male role model! Another
study indicated that 84% of the boys who become serious juvenile
offenders have parents with criminal records. It is quite clear
that at-risk young people are in desperate need of healthy relationships
with adults. Our approach is more about building relationships with
young people than building programs to reach them.
The Justice Department reported that nearly 1.5-million
American children have a mother or a father in federal or state
prison. Of these children, 1.38 million live in homes without their
fathers. A study presented to the American Sociological Association
showed that these boys with absentee fathers are twice as likely
to end up in prison as those who come from two-parent families.
Welcome to our mission field. These kids are desperate
for a family, positive relationships, and godly influences in their
lives! We can sit back and watch young offenders get caught up in
the cycle of becoming "lifers," or we can intervene today and help
them Breakaway from a troubled past and become responsible young
adults in our society.
Statistics say that most of the kids incarcerated
today will become repeat offenders. Breakaway Outreach is
there to show kids that statistics don't determine their
future, their choices do! As the Body of Christ, we also
have a choice to make: reach them or neglect them. One thing
we can't do is IGNORE them: if we fail to impact their lives,
they will eventually impact ours... good or bad. We can
'break' into their lives... or they will eventually 'break'
into ours!
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