This Radio Program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/?p=27

[Audio Begins]

Leonard Sipes: Hi, and welcome to D.C. Public Safety.  I am your host, Len Sipes.  At our microphones today is Reverend Yvonne Cooper, also here is Paul Tranthan.  Paul is an offender being supervised or helped or mentored by Reverend Yvonne Cooper.  And we’re going to start off with Reverend Cooper and we’re going to talk about volunteers, Yvonne, we’re going to be talking about people who voluntarily come in to assist offenders when they are released from prison.  How are you doing today?

Yvonne Cooper: I’m doing wonderful and I am excited that you have me here on your show.

Leonard Sipes: Well I’m excited for you to be here and I’m excited for Paul to be here because we talk about assisting people coming out of prison.  President Bush made it a part of the state of the union addresse a couple years ago; it really put reentry on the map.  A lot of people who have been working the reentry beat, what I’m saying, reentry for the radio listeners, we’re talking about assisting people coming out of the prison system—assisting people coming out of jails to see if we can help them meaningfully reintegrate thems back into society.  The statistics now are not very encouraging at all.

Yvonne Cooper: That’s right.

Leonard Sipes: According to national statistics, two-thirds are rearrested within three years, 50% are reincarcerated within three years.  Now we’re not even talking about technical violations while on parole and probation.  The great majority of the individuals, if you’re talking about re-arrest, quote unquote “fail.”  To a lot of people what that says is that, why bother?  If so many people are going to fail, why bother?  Some people run from the scene of an emergency and some people run to the emergency.

Yvonne Cooper: That’s right.

Leonard Sipes: You’re one of these people who run to the emergency.

Yvonne Cooper: That’s right.

Leonard Sipes: What prompted you to get involved in this program of helping—volunteering to help people coming out of the prison system?

Yvonne Cooper: Well you know Len; it was really quite easy for me because I am an ex-offender myself.  I was once an administrative law judge who was indicted and arrested for accepting bribes of which I did accept and faced 105 years in prison and had the opportunity to go to prison.  So had I not had that opportunity to go to prison I would not be doing what I’m doing today, I believe.  Once I came home, having been there and seeing the conditions of the prison, my heart was pricked so that when I came home I would want to help somebody else.  And so I think God everyday for having the opportunity to have gone to prison.  So since I’ve been home for the last ten or eleven years, that’s all I’ve been doing—prison ministry is who I am, prison ministry is what I do.  And helping out Paul was an easy thing for me to do and I’m excited about working with Paul and others, not just in this area, but in the country.

Leonard Sipes: Okay, we’re going to get to Paul; we’re going to focus on Paul in a while, but let’s focus on you for a while.

Yvonne Cooper: Sure.

Leonard Sipes: Now the average person listening to this program, once again, I’m going to see if we can gear the program towards them.

Yvonne Cooper: Okay.

Leonard Sipes: They’re going to say, ‘all right, well fine Reverend, you’re a minister and there are biblical passages engorging assistance…’ and when we’re talking about this faith-based program by the way, this is a faith-based effort with the churches and mosques and the synagogues within Washington D.C. and the metropolitan area.

Yvonne Cooper: Right.

Leonard Sipes: We’re talking about people who have a religious fervor—I guess I’m not quite sure fervor is the word to use, but that’s why they’re helping offenders.  I as a Christian know that my Christian upbringing basically asks me, or not asks, but commands me—

Yvonne Cooper: That’s right.

Leonard Sipes: —to deal with the least of society—and actually Jesus commanded that we go inside the prisons to assist offenders.

Yvonne Cooper: That’s right.

Leonard Sipes: But the average person will not.  The average person is basically saying, ‘I’m sorry, Yvonne, thank God your Christian sentiments propel you to do this sort of thing, I’m not.  Criminal offenders, I have no sympathy for them, they’ve done something terrible, they’ve done something wrong—I’m not quite sure I want to deal with them at all.’  The story I always tell are about the most influential women in my life, my mother and my wife.  And my mother basically said, ‘I’m not going to give a dime to criminal offenders.’

Yvonne Cooper: Sure.

Leonard Sipes: She said ‘Give it to the elderly.  The elderly are the people who went through the Great Depression, who fought the Second World War, who’s given so much to this society.  The elderly need this money, not criminal offenders.’  My wife, who was vice president of a PTA, said, ‘give it to the children.’

Yvonne Cooper: That’s right.

Leonard Sipes: ‘Let’s build on the children; let’s not build on the backs of people who have done wrong to other people.’  But you’re there nevertheless in the trenches day in, day out, dealing with offenders because of your incarcerative background, but because of what else?  Why are some of the other people—why are you beyond your incarcerative experience, why do you think other people are involved in mentoring to inmates coming out of prison?

Yvonne Cooper: A good number of the people are mentoring those who come home as a result of a person like me who educates them and let them know.  Because I was like your mom, I was like your wife.  I didn’t care; I could care less about someone who was in prison.  I was 41 or 42 years old before I even thought about helping out a prisoner, I thought that was taboo.  I mean, they did something wrong, they need to be there.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Yvonne Cooper: And so I had an opportunity as I said before, to go inside and see for myself the assistance that they needed, and my heart was pricked to come out and educate folk like your mom, my mom, my cousins, my brothers, my dad, to let them know that these people need some help.  And so I not only help those that have been to prison, I also try to educate others.  And as you know Len, every person that I can think of that’s in my life or that I know have someone that’s been to prison or know someone that’s been there.  And so I try to raise the conscious level and let them know that you have to help these people out.  Plus it’s a public safety issue; it makes sense to help these folks so that they don’t—

Leonard Sipes: What do you mean by a public safety issue?  Let’s dwell on that for a while.

Yvonne Cooper: Okay.  It’s public safety issue in that it would behoove us to help those when they come home so that when they do come home they’re going to break into my car; they’re not going to break into my house.  I want to help them to get a job, help them get on their feet, and help them with the GED program—that kind of thing.

Leonard Sipes: Does it work then?  If we’re going to say that by assisting individuals like Paul, who is going to come to the microphone in a second.  To assist individuals like Paul, then we can actually lower rates of recidivism, and when I say lower rates of recidivism, I’m saying that your house is likely to be broken into, your family is less likely to be robbed or violated—that’s what I’m talking about.  Is it possible to meaningfully reach these individuals?

Yvonne Cooper: I’ve seen the evidence.  I mean, I’ve seen in it Paul, and as you said, Paul will come to the mike in a moment—I’ve seen the evidence throughout no just in this city, but in Alabama.  I’ll just throw this out for a moment; I assisted a gentleman who had life without parole in the state of Alabama.  He happened to write me and I wrote him back and I ministered to him back and forth on the phone and through the mail, and again, he had life without parole.  Well there came a time that from the ministering to him and my encouraging him to file a document for his case, the without parole piece came off the table and then he began to believe that maybe there’s something to this Jesus thing.  And so later on as I was mentoring to him, he called me one day excited, he said, ‘Reverend Cooper, guess what?  I go up before the parole board; you said I was going to go.’  I said, ‘well what you need to do young man is to send your things home,’ he said, ‘well Reverend Cooper, if I send my stuff home, that’s the only way I can make money.’  I said, ‘if you believe, that’s what you’re going to have to do.’

Leonard Sipes: And this was a sewing machine that he was using to make—

Yvonne Cooper: This was a sewing machine that—

Leonard Sipes: —bible covers and—

Yvonne Cooper: Yes.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Yvonne Cooper: Yes, yes, yes yes.  As a matter of fact, he made bible covers, he mad purses; he made so many things with the sewing machine.

Leonard Sipes:  He was a gifted individual.

Yvonne Cooper: Right, very gifted—very gifted.  And so I said, ‘you need to send these home young man,’ and he said, ‘well if I send those things home, what am I going to do if I don’t come home?’  I said, ‘well you have to believe you’re going to come home,’ so he sent them home.  And I had the blessed opportunity to go to the state of Alabama, I sent myself down there, and the parole board allowed me the opportunity to come before them and to speak on behalf of this young man.  And that was on January 31st, just the early part of this year.  Well let me tell you, this young man came home three weeks ago and he’s working today.  He’s working, he’s doing what he likes to do—he likes to work with his hands.  He’s working at a construction company as he did when his father was living.  I talked to him as a matter of fact today, and he’s so excited about the job and the opportunity.  He was there for 17 years and so he’s excited.  I believe that he’s going to make it you know; he was a three-time loser.

Leonard Sipes: But before we go to Paul, we’re going to go to Paul in a second.  So many people listening to this program, they’re going to say, ‘okay, fine.  Reverend Cooper, Yvonne, I’ll buy into the possibility that if you give people coming out of prison mentoring, if you give them drug treatment programs, GED programs, help them find a job, they’re going to lower the rate of recidivism and my chances and my family’s chances of being violated are less.’  But they would say at the same time ‘but Yvonne, certainly you’ve gotta admit that there are people who desperately belong in prison and who are dangerous human beings and they belong there.’

Yvonne Cooper: I concur with you 101%, no question.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.  Paul, we’re going to go over to you.  Paul Tranthan, and I got the name correct the second time around, right Paul?

Paul Tranthan: Yes you did.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.  Paul, you came out of the federal prison system, now all offenders in the District of Columbia now go to the federal prison system, for our listeners’ clarification.  You came out from the prison system when?

Paul Tranthan:  2003.

Leonard Sipes: Okay, so you’ve been out for three years, how you been?  And what were you in for by the way?

Paul Tranthan: Well I was in for robbery.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.  And so how many years did you do?

Paul Tranthan:  I did approximately eight years.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Paul Tranthan: I went in 1994 and I came out in 2003.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.  And so you came out in 2003 and this has been a piece of cake, right, reentry back into society?

Paul Tranthan: I would say yes, it has been a piece of cake.

Leonard Sipes: Now wait a minute, for most offenders it’s not a piece of cake.  For most offenders it’s one of the most difficult things they’ve ever been through.  I didn’t expect that answer from you.  You know, and the listeners to this program know that I don’t prep my folks, but I did not expect that answer.  I expected, ‘hey, this has been one of the hardest things in my life,’ but for you it was easy?

Paul Tranthan: Well let me clear that up, the reason what I was meaning by it was a piece cake, the walk that I have taken now is really a piece of cake.  When I went in this time, I had made up in my mind that when I do come out of prison, I’m never going to return back into prison.  So it started in there—my thinking, my attitude, my behavior, my discipline, all that started when I got incarcerated again.

Leonard Sipes: Now I’m going to interrupt you as we go along.  Do you want to know how many—I’ve been in the system for 37 years that dates me, and I’ve been dealing with corrections for probably 20 of those 37 years.  If I had a nickel for every offending coming out of prison who said they’re not coming back and who came back, I’d probably be rich.  So I understand you said, ‘I’m not going back.’  Most people say, ‘I’m not going back,’ the results show otherwise—the statistics.

Paul Tranthan: And I agree with you there, however, my actions speak for me not returning.  When I came home I immediately started looking for employment.  After I received employment then I started looking for housing, and the housing is that great here in D.C., however, I was provided with a room.  And while living in this room and working—I’ve been a member of my church, Allan(ph) AME Chapel and I have great support from the ministerial staff all the way down to the congregation.  And that was the—

Leonard Sipes: Did that make a difference for you, Paul, having that faith-based program, having not just one mentor, it is a church—it is a mosque, it is a synagogue, so it’s just not the one volunteer, it’s the entire congregation trying to help out people coming out of the prison system.  Do you think that that made a big difference in terms of your successful adjustment?

Paul Tranthan: I know that that had a lot to do with my success because as I was going into the church you know, staying under refuge—under God, so many people came to me with open arms and if I made a quote or statement, I’m not a judge—we all make mistakes.  And you know—

Leonard Sipes: Okay, but we all don’t commit robbery.

Paul Tranthan: Exactly, we may not break the law of the earth, but we break God’s laws all the time.

Leonard Sipes:  All the time, yes.  No doubt.

Paul Tranthan: And you know, that’s the greatest offense, breaking God’s law, however, I did commit armed robbery, being on substance abuse—drugs, and I take full responsibility for my actions and what I did, and I paid time to society for the crime that I did.  Like I said, in getting back to the church, the members in the church, they came to me.  Certain ones came and offered up money, certain ones came up and offered up jobs that they had connections with, and some of them just came up and offered up good advice and encouraging words because sometimes just a hug would make the difference in a guy like my life.  You know, because I’ve been down for so long, and what I mean by that—I’ve been hard on myself, I kicked myself so many times because I’ve never achieved nothing.  I realized I was a 22-year old male and I had nothing and I self-pitied myself because of my background as far as being a foster child, I felt sorry for myself and why my mom and my daddy did what they did, and why God would allow such a person as great as me to suffer and endure life’s hardships on this earth.  So I pitied myself, and with that then I ran to something that made me feel like I was okay, which was drugs.  And as a result of doing those drugs, I ended up committing an offense.  Now when I—

Leonard Sipes: And probably not just one.

Paul Tranthan: Well not—yeah, correct.  That’s absolutely correct, I didn’t commit just one, I committed maybe a few and then I was caught and charged with the offense and a lot of people—but I just stopped feeling sorry for myself.  When I went in this time I said, ‘this is it, enough is enough.’  And I started in there and I’ve had just like Reverend Cooper had said that she went up and spoke on behalf of this offender, I had a warden down in one of the federal institutions—I had him come up on the parole board and he said, ‘I don’t normally do this, but your behavior and how you been in this prison, I’m going to go down and speak to the parole commission,’ and that he did.  And he said that, ‘Mr. Tranthan, I believe you will be a good candidate for parole,’ and his belief is correct.

Leonard Sipes: What do you think made you cross that line, Paul?  Because what you just described, the drugs, the background, how you felt about yourself, problems with parents, that applies to probably 90% of the offenders that I’ve talked to throughout my career.  Again, most—according to national statistics, two-thirds are rearrested in three years, 50% are reincarcerated in three years–that’s a pretty significant statement.  So you’re a success, a lot of your peers aren’t successful, what do you think is the reason why?  Because we’ve already talked about the fact that you said you weren’t going back, everybody says they’re not going back.

Paul Tranthan: And that’s true.

Leonard Sipes: And there they are—

Paul Tranthan: Back.

Leonard Sipes: They’re back, that’s right.

Paul Tranthan: That’s correct.

Leonard Sipes: What do you think was the issue in your life that helped you cross that bridge?

Paul Tranthan: It was believing in myself and loving myself enough to know that I could stay out of prison.  I wasn’t no jail product, I wasn’t designed nor made for jail.  God didn’t—

Leonard Sipes: Nobody is.

Paul Tranthan: Well that’s correct, however, some people will cause themselves to go to jail for a long time for the things that they’ve done.  But for me, I realized that jail was not who I was, and as a result, I made up in my mind like I said in jail, that I was not coming back in these—behind these gates.  And now while I’m in society, I do everything—I don’t hang around negativity, I don’t think negative, I plant myself in my church, I plant myself around people that give me encouraging words.  I’m not financially stable to the point where I can just take a trip here, but I’m not financially broke where I can’t go and buy me a nice pair of pants or a suit.  I had not clothes to wear but the clothes that were sent to me by sister.  In prison I had nothing, but today I have over 15 or 16 suits brand new that I have bought through the grace of God and others that understood.  I’ve even started working, I started out—

Leonard Sipes: What are you doing?

Paul Tranthan: Well I was working for Safeway and I started as a courtesy clerk, ended up as a Starbucks manager.

Leonard Sipes: Cool.

Paul Tranthan: And then I started working for the paper, one of our local papers within the city in which I live in.

Leonard Sipes: And what paper is that?

Paul Tranthan: And that is the Washington Informer by Mrs. Denise Rolark Barnes.

Leonard Sipes: Yep.

Paul Tranthan: Her father started that paper 42 years ago.

Leonard Sipes: I know it well.

Paul Tranthan: All right.  And so you know, and this is what I’m talking about going back to, those in my church—these people in my church that have helped me and are still helping me, they don’t look down on me.  As a matter of fact, they come to me and assist me, and they ask me to speak to other brothers that are incarcerated.  Some members in my church have walked up to me and said, ‘Paul, you know, I have an uncle and I have a cousin that is incarcerated and you know, I really am impressed—I didn’t know you were locked up, but I’m really impressed.  Would you be willing to talk to them and give them some encouraging words?’  And I said, ‘yeah, sure I will.’  One lady, she came and she said, ‘he’s fifty-something years old, Paul, and he just keeps going back in jail.  Will you talk to him?’  And I said, ‘yeah.’  I said, ‘but you know, some people are set in their ways after a certain time.’  But I went and I talked with him and he understood.  And then I had another brother when we went out one day and evangelized on Robertson Place, and this brother came to me—a member came to me and said, ‘Paul, what you said to him is why he’s here today,’ and I said, ‘okay then.’  And then when he came up to me I didn’t know who he was, because I said many encouraging good words to many different people out there in the community.  And he came up and he said, ‘man what you said and everything you said to me was so true.’  And that’s why today, right now today, Reverend Cooper can acclaim to this individual, she knows him, but right now today he comes to church, he participates, he’s very active in our church.  And our church is very warm and open to people that want to come and get to know about the Lord and just want to be loved—and Allan is a church of love.  Allan is a church where we understand, we’re not one of those churches that’s saying that, ‘we’re going to do this and we’re going to do that.’  We put what we say into action, we’re out there.  I mean, from the ministerial staff all the way to the youth of our church, we’re into action—we’re in there giving out you know—

Leonard Sipes: Okay.  Before we go back to Reverend Cooper, I do want to ask you about programs.  Were there any programs in federal prison or any programs given by my agency, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency that helped you out?

Paul Tranthan:  I’m glad you asked me that question.  Yes, there are many programs on the inside of the federal prison that would help anyone that wants to come out and stay out in the prison.

Leonard Sipes: Like what?

Paul Tranthan: Okay, they had a program—they asked me, ‘Mr. Tranthan, you’re going to have to take anger management.’

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Paul Tranthan:  That’s one program.  And I said, ‘anger management?  I’m already managing my anger; I’m not going to no anger management.’  But then when I got into this program and started going in there and sitting down listening to the instructor and telling you about—describing what is management and how to control your anger, I said, ‘oh, this is a positive program.’  Then you know, they had a program in there like the GED program, they had college programs in the federal prison institutions where a lot of people took advantage of these programs.

Leonard Sipes: With those, not to confuse the listener, but most of these college programs, you have to pay them yourself, correct?

Paul Tranthan: Yes that’s correct, you have to pay some money to what—not much, but some you do have to pay.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.  Any programs in CSOSA, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency?  I never did announce who we are at the beginning of this program. [Laughs] We’re the federally funded parole and probation agency serving Washington D.C. providing parole and probation services.  So did anything that we offered you besides the faith-based program?

Paul Tranthan: CSOSA offered me a lot, they offered me the mentoring course, they offered me—I’m just trying to remember all the rewards I you know, all the programs that I took.  I took many programs in prison, but these programs that I took were—you know, a lot of people would say to get out of prison.  However, I took them because I wanted them to benefit me when I did come out.

Leonard Sipes: I started off the program saying that nobody cares?  Few care about offenders—and you know this, and Reverend Cooper knows this—I’ll say an awful lot of people simply don’t care about people coming out of prison.  One of the things that we say is that the more programs we have in place like the faith-based program—but GED programs, helping individuals find work, helping the mental health offenders deal with their mental health problems in a substantive way.  What programs did you have on the table to help individuals come out of the prison system the better they do?  That is in essence the proposition that we put on the table.  We put that proposition on the table from the standpoint that it lowers recidivism.  What is recidivism, people ask, it simply means that these individuals do not climb into your home to burglarize it and that don’t violate your family.  That’s the bottom line behind recidivism, am I right or wrong in terms of programs?

Paul Tranthan:  We need the programs in the institution because without the programs then you leave them no alternative but to come back out and do what they consider, ‘I’m just living, I gotta do what I have to do.’  Without these programs, they’re not educated.  You have a lot of ignorance in jail and because of that, if they don’t have certain programs that they can apply to themselves so when they come out, be prepared to work—if they don’t know nothing about filling our a resume, if they don’t know nothing about how to go on an interview, if they don’t know nothing about how to just get themselves ready to go out here and live in society and function as a citizen of society, then you’re sending them right back to jail—so we need the programs.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.  Paul, I think you.  Reverend Yvonne Cooper, I’m going to go back to you.  All right, we’ve heard what Paul has had to say.  It was passionate, he’s been out of the prison system for about three years—he is doing well.  By the way, in terms of doing well, the listeners need to understand that we probably have some of the lowers supervision rates in the country, which means we have the lowest ratio of offenders to our community supervision officers or our parole and probation agents which means we watch them a lot more than most parole and probation agencies throughout the country.  We drug test individuals in our system a lot more than practically anybody else in the country.  We ride heard on offenders when they come out of prison, we can be fairly tough on them.  But at the same time, we provide the programs whether its drug treatment or GED programs or other educational programs or job placement programs or mental health programs—we provide those programs as well.  We believe in the combination of holding offenders accountable and at the same time providing them with the programs that they need.  So having editorialized there, what do you think Paul had to say and how do you think the average person will respond to it?

Yvonne Cooper: Well you know, I’m glad you said what you said, and I’d like to piggyback on what you said and what Paul said—the last bit of his comments.  I’d like to commend CSOSA honestly because CSOSA has picked up where the church has dropped the ball.  And I’m very critical of the church.  I wasn’t always a preacher, as you know; I became a preacher once I came home from prison.  But as I try to educate churches, and I commended CSOSA just a couple of weeks ago as a matter of fact when I was a keynote speaker at one of the events.  And what I use a resource is the bible, and give me just a few moments—back in the biblical days when God had given Moses the ten commandments and then the laws, the 600 and something laws—one of those laws said that there has to be cities of refuge for those that commit crimes.  And they go to those cities of refuge and once they pay their time, they come back and they have full rights and privileges restored.  And as you move further down the line, the same thing happened in the Roman church.  The Catholics, they had people to pay penitence when they did something wrong, and once they did that, paid penitence—

Leonard Sipes: Their slate was wiped clean.

Yvonne Cooper: It was wiped clean.

Leonard Sipes: But it was wiped clean in terms of your liturgical background, it was wiped clean with God, but it wasn’t wiped with man.

Yvonne Cooper: Well their rights and privileges were restored, that’s the point I’m trying to make, and then finally…

Leonard Sipes: Within the church.

Yvonne Cooper: Within the church.  But wait a minute and let me finally say this, I want to get to a point here.  It was the Mormon Church that established the very first penitentiary.  And so still we’re talking about the church the whole time, so my thing is that the church are the ones that put those things in place and so it is my mind—it is clearly an evonism, it is the church’s responsibility to do what they can to help these people once they come out but they’re not doing it.  And so that’s why I’m commending CSOSA for picking up where the church has dropped the ball.

Leonard Sipes: But they’re not doing it because society at large doesn’t do it.  If you would go to the average Christian, if you would go to the average member of the Islamic faith, if you would go the average member of the Jewish faith and you would say, ‘hey, okay we are going to take food to the elderly and we’re going to deal with AIDS patients and we’re going to support a local elementary school—and oh by the way, we’re going to mentor to criminals down at the prison system,’ guess how many people are going to volunteer to mentor the criminals at prison system?

Yvonne Cooper: They’d say, ‘hold up.’

Leonard Sipes: ‘Excuse me, what?’

Yvonne Cooper: That’s true.

Leonard Sipes: But that’s a reaction, that’s not just a reaction from the faith-based community, that’s a reaction from practically anybody in society.

Yvonne Cooper: That’s real.  That’s real, but the only point I’m trying to make is that because the church has failed—I mean, in my mind’s eye, the church clearly has failed.  Because the church has failed, I’m just commending CSOSA—I mean, it’s your job to work with these people, these previously incarcerated people when they come home because that’s your job.  But I commend them for having the foresight to put certain things in place so that we can cut down the recidivism rate.  Those other programs you mentioned—feeding the elderly and helping out with the kids and AIDS patients, those are what they call sexy type of projects.  And dealing with someone who just robbed your house—

Leonard Sipes: Is hard.

Yvonne Cooper: –or murdered someone is a hard pill to swallow, it’s no question.  But as you started off the show talking about, in Matthew, the bible says that when I was thirsty you gave me something to drink, when I was hungry you gave me something to eat.  But when it came to the prisoner, the bible said Jesus said, ‘you came unto me.’  So to me it means that the prisoner needs more than something to drink, something to eat, or visit, they need a popery of things.  And so I think that’s so necessary.

Leonard Sipes: And I hate ending the program this way, one of the things we have to mention—I guess we should have mentioned it at the beginning of the program, is that for an offender to be part of all of this, they don’t have to adhere to Catholicism, they don’t have to adhere to the tenants of the Baptist church or the Islamic religion even though the mentor may be Islamic, even though the church may be Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian, it doesn’t matter.  They don’t have to embrace those religious tenants—

Yvonne Cooper: Right.

Leonard Sipes: –it is a faith-based program; you lead through your faith.  But if that person wants to not join the church, that’s perfectly okay.

Yvonne Cooper: That’s okay, yeah.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.  And Yvonne and Paul, thank you.  This has been an interesting program.  We were talking at the beginning of program, let’s try to keep it to 15 minutes and punchy, but it was so interesting, especially Paul’s testimony and your testimony, Yvonne, that we had to go in the length of time that we did.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is D.C. Public Safety, our guests today have been Reverend Yvonne Cooper and our person who she helps who’s out of the prison system is Paul Tranthan.  My name is Leonard Sipes; I’m the senior public affairs specialist.  Please have yourself a very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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