This week we explored Criminal Justice Reform. We told stories of our own experiences with the criminal justice system. Rhonda spent years leading groups and teaching bibles studies within the federal prison system with groups from her churches in the midwest. I served as a chaplain intern at the State Psychiatric Hospital in Salem and Gaye has walked with parishioners and their family and friends through incarceration. We were pleased to discover as we shared and learned that Oregon stopped working with private prisons in 2001. We researched how one might visit a prisoner in Federal Prison in Sheridan, discovering that to take transit would involve a 45 minute walk through rural roads. Inmates connected to family and friends have better outcomes, but often prisoners are incarcerated in places removed from families. Salem has a large number of families who have moved there to support family in one of the 11 different correctional facilities in the area. As we looked at how we can care for those in prison I shared the website Black & Pink a group that works for the abolishment of prisons. There is a ton of information about how to get involved on their website as well as a program to become a penpal of an LGBTQ+ prisoner.
It has been wonderful getting to learn together this lent. I am off for the next two weeks to attend a family gathering in Scotland taht we might scatter my mom’s ashes in her homeland.
May you continue to learn adn grow in this season-
Eilidh
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