When pondering faith and redemption, the concept of “making good” on the past can be a crucial step in moving forward.
Professor Edward Orozco Flores’s new book, “Jesus Saved an Ex-Con: Political Activism and Redemption After Incarceration” explores how formerly incarcerated individuals organize to change their communities with a goal of “making good.”
The book, published with New York University Press in September, builds upon qualitative research Flores conducted from 2012 through 2015. Flores conducted participant observation with Chicago-based Community Renewal Society (CRS) and Los Angeles-based LA Voice. While CRS supported faith-based organizing among the formerly incarcerated through the FORCE project, LA Voice supported the Homeboy Industries Local Organizing Committee.
The book builds off Flores’s first book “God’s Gangs,” which examined faith-based recovery among former gang members at Homeboy Industries and Victory Outreach. Flores said a common theme in “God’s Gangs” was how these organizations reoriented people away from the streets through shifts in religious practices and gendered displays.
“Jesus Saved an Ex-Con” turns the focus toward how the formerly incarcerated participate in civic and political action.
“During the research for my first book, I wanted to see persons in recovery doing something intentional to change the conditions under which they lived,” Flores said. “I thought that it would require some sort of political awakening. I found I was totally wrong.
“People who are formerly incarcerated participate in organizing to change laws precisely through efforts at redemption and making good.”
“Jesus Saved an Ex-Con” tracks how formerly incarcerated persons organized corporate and legislative campaigns to regulate the use of records in job hires, remove absolute bars against people with records and reappropriate state funding.
Flores said formerly incarcerated people expressed it was their opportunity to give back to their communities and to prevent others from going down the same path.
Flores is an associate professor in sociology and is part of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. His areas of specialization include race, gender, religion and immigration. Flores has been with UC Merced for five years.
