Seminary in Jail

SBI Certificate in Theological Studies

The SBI Certificate program offered by McCormick Theological Seminary provides individuals, women and men, detained in program tiers at the Cook County Department of Corrections with the opportunity to earn a 2-part non-credit bearing Introductory Certificate in Theological Studies. Certificate courses intentionally provide students in the carceral classroom with practical theological education. Students are exposed to a range of interdisciplinary resources and pedagogical practices directed at personal, professional and social transformation.  Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute reported in their study Recovery: Job Growth and Requirements Through 2020 that by 2020, “65 percent of all jobs in the economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school." 

Certificate courses offered by McCormick provide concrete material value to students beyond the jail classroom, and will provide value to them upon reentry. Moreover, a study conducted by the World Economic Forum reported that the most important human skills in 2022 for the workforce will include critical thinking and analysis, complex problem solving, leadership and social influence, emotional intelligence, and active learning and learning strategies. 

Courses and extra-curricular learning opportunities assist students in developing skills of critical analysis, problem solving, social analysis, community building, and emotional intelligence. Students are encouraged to dialogue with, and ask hard questions of, the authoritative sources we study--whether that authority is Scripture or the scholars we read. The aim is to offer resources that may help students survive their current social location or support them as they move back to their old neighborhoods and prepare them for workforce or post-secondary education upon release from jail or prison.

Certificate learning objectives invite student to:

• Utilize the authoritative source of their experience and the particularities of  their social identity to articulate the interconnection between personal and social transformation. 

• Use and integrate a variety of theological, biblical and interdisciplinary resources in order to construct meaning for their time and place. 

• Produce a clear action plan for continued growth drawing upon key themes from the certificate courses to address the challenges of incarceration and reentry.

• Nurture collegial relationships that strengthen healthy communities both inside and outside the jail. 

At the Cook County Department of Corrections (CCDOC) approximately 100,000 individuals circulate through the jail annually. The daily jail population prior to COVID-19 averaged 6,100 of which Black and Native Americans are significantly overrepresented, and 33% of the total population is diagnosed with mental health challenges, making CCDOC one of the largest mental health providers in the country. While it can be rightly acknowledged that a need is being met for our friends with mental health challenges, it is problematic and alarming when prisons and jails replace mental health facilities. Because jails are pre-trial detention centers, most residents remain behind bars simply because they cannot afford their money bond.

Individuals detained in program tiers at the CCDOC have access to pretrial higher education. As one of many academic institutions part of the CCDOC’s Higher Education in Jail initiative, McCormick Theological Seminary offers a Certificate in Theological Studies through the Solidarity Building Initiative. Certificate students reside in maximum security divisions, they hold a GED or high school diploma and some have earned their bachelor's degree or have taken some college-level courses prior to their incarceration.

Click here or below to review and download SBI’s Certificate Course Catalogue.

Interested in teaching with us contact, Jia Johnson at jjohnson@mccormick.edu.