David Smilde, associate professor of sociology at UGA, was quoted in a Christian Science Monitor article about the rise of Pentecostal churches nationwide. Speaking about how the church has embraced gang members with conversion offers, Smilde, who studied the phenomenon in Caracas, Venezuela, said, “It’s a way of stepping out of an impossible situation; they are no longer feared by the [criminal] network,” he said. “Pentecostalism is one way out.”