{"id":4796,"date":"2008-08-15T14:22:36","date_gmt":"2008-08-15T18:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/?p=4796"},"modified":"2012-02-06T15:20:56","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T19:20:56","slug":"from-cop-to-servant-paying-penance-to-the-needy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2008\/08\/from-cop-to-servant-paying-penance-to-the-needy\/","title":{"rendered":"From Cop to Servant: Paying Penance to the Needy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thaddeus Hicks. Photo by Matthew Styer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On September 8, 2007, Thaddeus Hicks, MA ’08<\/a>, was handing out bottles of water and sandwiches from a Salvation Army emergency canteen in downtown Atlanta, Georgia.<\/p>\n

Working as a \u201cSalvation soldier,\u201d Hicks had just handed a water bottle to a man on a bicycle when a pick-up truck hit the man and ran him over.<\/p>\n

Hicks leaned over the man sprawled in the street just long enough to make sure that he was responsive. And then Hicks took off at a dead run after the hit-and-run driver. The truck headed into a dead-end, then backed up and tried to come back by Hicks.<\/p>\n

Hicks jumped onto the driver-side running board, reached an arm through the driver\u2019s open window, threw the gear into park and pulled the keys from the ignition. Then he dragged the driver out of the truck, pushed him in a spread-eagle stance against the hood, and began frisking him for weapons.<\/p>\n

When local police officers arrived on the scene, they were astonished to find a drunken hit-and-run suspect in the custody of a 6-foot, 6-inch, 295-pound man wearing a Salvation Army uniform.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t realize they were dealing with an eight-year veteran of policing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to be a cop\u2019s cop,\u201d says Thaddeus \u201cThad\u201d Hicks. \u201cWhen that man got run over in front of me, my old instincts kicked in. The adrenalin started pumping, and I really forgot that I was no longer a police officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hicks is not only no longer a cop, he is a graduate student in conflict transformation under EMU\u2019s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. On June 21, 2007, he married a fellow graduate student in his program, Marie-Jos\u00e9 Tayah of Lebanon, who has joined Hicks as a soldier in the Salvation Army.<\/p>\n

Hicks\u2019 vocational journey began in his family where several of the men were police officers. He earned a four-year degree in criminology before becoming a patrol officer in Mansfield, Ohio.<\/p>\n

Hicks had the large, muscular build and no-nonsense demeanor that fits many people\u2019s image of an effective cop. He often led his police department in number of arrests and excelled at catching drunk drivers, earning the respect of his peers.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThad\u201d Hicks with his wife Marie-Jos\u00e9 Tayah. Photo by Jon Styer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t a hippy policeman \u2013 I liked wrestling and kicking in doors. I could talk to people in a way that would make them shudder.\u201d He drew his gun many times, but he never needed to shoot anyone.<\/p>\n

Hicks enjoyed police work for his first five or so years on the job. \u201cLike most police officers I figured that the current law enforcement system was working very well,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI figured that offenders had forfeited some of their rights when they committed acts that society deemed wrong. I went home after an eight-hour shift and slept fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut something inside of me didn\u2019t like what I was becoming,\u201d he adds. \u201cSociety needs police officers, but the job will chew you up and spit you out. You have to harden yourself to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery cop I knew was divorced. The offense rates for cops\u2019 kids are much higher than for other professions. I think it\u2019s because cops begin to treat everyone alike \u2013 like everyone is out to get them, even their wives and kids. I still have a hard time trusting anyone. I still think they have ulterior motives, that they are out to hurt me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without quite knowing why, Hicks started attending church for the first time since joining the police force. Not just any church. He ended up at a church that was deeply involved in helping the homeless and needy.<\/p>\n

Hicks found himself breaking up fights as a uniformed officer at 2 a.m., then \u2013 after getting off work and changing into civilian clothes \u2013 serving coffee and a meal to some of the same people involved in the fights. These folks were hungry. They had come to his church for help after a horrific night. Often the people he served would look at him with a puzzled expression, trying to place why he looked familiar to them, but rarely would anyone connect Hicks-the-Samaritan serving them breakfast with Hicksthe- Enforcer of the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese men and women could not feed their families; they couldn\u2019t find a job, or a place to live,\u201d Hicks says. \u201cThis really caused me to start thinking. I realized there had to be something more to what I did. I can see now that I started working with the homeless and needy to try to pay penance for what I was doing to them during my shift at the police department.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hicks felt troubled that he had taken an oath as a police officer to protect and serve all the citizens of his city, yet he was not protecting and serving the most vulnerable. \u201cI would arrest someone, and they would go to jail for a few nights, and then they would be back out. They were not being rehabilitated. They were not getting better. It wouldn\u2019t be long before they re-offended and the cycle would continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Searching for answers, Hicks signed up for a trip to Colombia in South America with Christian Peacemaker Teams in September 2005. Through contacts there he learned that EMU had a Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) where a new approach to crime, called \u201crestorative justice,\u201d was being taught. He checked out the program online and was pleased to see that it emphasized \u201cpractice\u201d and \u201cpractitioners,\u201d which \u201csounded like a good fit to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Restorative justice encourages offenders to be accountable for their acts by increasing their awareness of the harms they have done and to \u201cput things right\u201d as much as possible. Restorative justice emphasizes addressing the needs of the victims, who are often sidelined by the criminal justice process. Restorative justice also embraces the positive roles that can be played by family and community members.<\/p>\n

By the fall of 2006, Hicks was enrolled in CJP\u2019s restorative justice concentration in pursuit of a masters degree. He also started work at the local Salvation Army.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not an instant convert to restorative justice,\u201d Hicks says. \u201cThose circle processes [used to facilitate dialogue]\u2026 I hated them at first. But Howard [referring to Dr. Zehr, professor of restorative justice] has been good to recognize that everyone comes from a different place. He gave me space and time, and I came to decide that circle processes work and should be given a try.\u201d Hicks adds: \u201cIt took some time to clean out eight years of indoctrination. I\u2019ve re-thought some of my feelings, and I now see the need to restrain some of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hicks has been trying to ascertain how restorative justice might be applied to his work with the homeless at the Salvation Army. Once Hicks finishes his masters degree, he hopes to take on the additional challenge of introducing restorative justice concepts to police forces, perhaps even doing some work in his wife\u2019s home country of Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hicks is planning an offender re-entry program at the Salvation Army to help offenders make the transition from living in prison to living as law-abiding community members. The program will include training in life-skills, such as how to make and stick to a household budget and how to prepare for a job interview. It will also include a bank of helpful contacts, particularly employers and landlords willing to give offenders a chance to succeed.<\/p>\n

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Thad Hicks in a Salvation Army dorm room. Photo by Matthew Styer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Without such a re-entry program, a person released from prison has a two-in-three chance of ending up back behind bars, says Hicks. Re-entry assistance drastically reduces these numbers, which he notes \u201ctranslates into hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars saved on the local level alone, plus a safer community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hicks points out that the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, pledged in a speech over 100 years ago to fight to keep men and women from re-offending. So it makes sense for Hicks and his wife, Marie-Jos\u00e9, to continue that fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I could go back to 2005, I think I would have trouble recognizing myself,\u201d says Hicks. \u201cIt\u2019s not that I have completely changed \u2013 to be honest, I really loved the adrenalin rush of chasing that hit-and-run driver last summer. I love policing \u2013 it excites me \u2013 but I can also step back and see that it is not good for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sidebar: What is the Salvation Army?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On September 8, 2007, Thaddeus Hicks, MA ’08, was handing out bottles of water and sandwiches from a Salvation Army emergency canteen in downtown Atlanta,… Read more about From Cop to Servant: Paying Penance to the Needy<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[587,1045],"issues":[1044],"class_list":["post-4796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resources","tag-salvation-army","tag-thaddeus-hicks","issues-spring-summer-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4796"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4801,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4796\/revisions\/4801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4796"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=4796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}