JIFF

JIFF - Improving Memphis’ image one life at a time…

 I’m proud to call myself a life long Memphian. That’s why it pains me to see how outsiders view our city. I attended The University of Mississippi so I talk regularly with Ole Miss fans from other parts of the country. Anytime I make a statement like “hey maybe the Rebels can come to the Liberty Bowl this year” almost without exception you see the scowl on the face and a comment like “I don’t want to come to Memphis and get shot!” A vast majority of outsiders don’t know Memphis’ neighborly side, its spiritual side or its giving side all they know is what they read and that’s not pretty. The headlines say more violent crimes are committed in Memphis per capita than in any other city. We are also the second “leading” city when it comes to property crime. Forbes magazine just rated Memphis as the second most miserable place to live in the US mostly because of our horrid crime numbers. We turn to our politicians and scream “FIX IT!” only to see almost as much corruption from them as we see in the streets. We turn to our police department and scream “FIX IT!” only to see an overwhelmed and understaffed situation. Let me suggest one other place to turn, it’s an organization called JIFF.

JIFF stands for Juvenile Intervention and Faith-based Follow-up, they focus on entering the lives of repeat juvenile offenders and breaking the destructive cycle of juvenile crime through Christ-centered intervention. If you are looking for solutions well listen to this, statistics tell us that nationally approximately 80% of juvenile offenders return to jail within 3 years after being arrested. JIFF has been evaluated by the University of Memphis and other independent groups and consistently shows a recidivism rate of about 25%! Now keep in mind JIFF doesn’t target the first time offender, the kid from a good family that made a mistake, they target teenage repeat offenders from Memphis’ poorest neighborhoods. JIFF enters into the lives of the kids most likely to commit another violent crime and teaches them a better way.

JIFF’s founder and executive director is the Rev. Rick Carr.  Rick moved to Memphis in 2000 after “slaving for Christ in Homestead Florida.” He came here to head up a ministry called Youth for Christ but God quickly tuned his attention to the crime issue in Memphis. It’s a call he couldn’t ignore and in 2003 JIFF was launched. “We found that so many youth in Memphis were exposed to all the risk factors… single parent, poor education, little spiritual development. On the flip side very few of the protective factors were in place… strong family, good role models, good education or strong churches. A vast majority of kids in that situation go into survival mode with no goals in life other than to make it to the next day.” So through a variety of ways JIFF begins the task of lowering the risk factors and raising the protective factors in the young men that are referred to them. It’s called the 6 H approach JIFF deals with the heart (spiritual), the head (educational), health (body), home (family), hobbies (fun) and higher ability (career). An article could be written on all of these but let’s focus on higher ability for now. Very few repeat juvenile offenders have any marketable skills only survival skills. The problem is how do you teach an 18 year old poorly educated criminal a marketable skill? Answer, you find marketable skills that can be easily learned. One such industry is the culinary industry. So opening this month in JIFF’s brand new 3.5 million dollar facility at 254 S. Lauderdale is the Culinary Arts Training Kitchen. Kids are taught how to prepare food, how to serve food, the business side of things etc. In other word they learn a marketable skill that offers hope for a bright future. JIFF has future plans to open up an auto mechanic learning center at the same facility. Here is an easy way to help yourself, this city and JIFF. Schedule a meeting at JIFF’s “restaurant”. Your group will be served excellent food and drink by aspiring young chefs, waiters and managers and they will get real time feedback on what they can improve on and more importantly what they are doing right.

I look forward to the day when my Ole Miss buddies will say “Man I sure hope the Rebels can play in the Liberty Bowl this year!” With Godly men like Rick Carr and organizations like JIFF around I have great hope that day will be here soon!

To find out more about JIFF visit www.jiffyouth.org