Leaders describe in depth their ministries that serve men, women and youth whose lives are impacted by incarceration.
Some seek to carry out Jesus’ command to visit men, women, and youth in prison.
“…I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Matthew 25:36 NIV
Others seek to prevent incarceration, support families of the incarcerated, or provide support to those reentering society after incarceration.
For the first time in decades, 23 leaders of prison ministries in CT met September 9, 2023 to share what each prison ministry does, its challenges, and how they can work together more than they’ve been doing. They’re motivated by Jesus’ prayer that we be one. John 17:20-21 NIV
Many expressed what a privilege and honor they have to serve.
All of them have opportunities to volunteer, both inside, and mostly outside the prisons. Churches large and small can have a prison ministry. Read below and contact the ministries or email dyerd@unityct.com for more information on these volunteer opportunities.
A shorter page has a list of Prison Ministries in CT.
- Kairos Prison Ministry
- Ministries inside for women
- Ministries outside for women
- Prison Fellowship
- Urban Alliance second chance churches
- HomeBridge Ventures re-entry ministry
Kairos Prison Ministry
Allan Cameron: Chair, Kairos Prison Ministry CT
I’ll just try to give you an overview of Kairos. Well, the word comes from God’s special time. : We’ve been around since 1976. We are in 500 prisons across the country in 37 States and 9 countries.
In Connecticut pre-covid, we were in MacDougal, Walker, Manson, Corrigan, Radgowski, Garner, and York correctional institutions in CT.
Our ministry is being reactivated at York. On the men’s side, we seem to be having a little bit more trouble gaining traction.
Kairos is non denominational. It’s Christian. It’s ecumenical, but it is non-denominational, and it’s run by laypeople. There’s certainly a role for chaplains in our ministry, but their role is really much more to do with relations with the prisoners, and less to do with what the program is.
Our goal is to build a Christian community within the prison, working with the chaplain.
And what that really means is we want to take on the negative leaders in the prison. We want to take on the people that are causing the administration problems. We want to bring them to Jesus through our retreat weekends. And what we hope is that by building a church within the prison we’re able to improve the environment, the safety and security of everyone in the prison, not just the Kairos graduates, but the people that surround them! They’re cell mates and so on.
My personal experience
One of the most striking things that happened to me in my time in Kairos was my first pre training at Garner. I don’t remember the lady’s name, but she was a social worker, and she was given the the Pria training, and she said the most peaceful weekends that happened at Garner happened when Kairos was in the house and on the weekends when Kairos was in with the big retreat, the 3 and a half day retreat that was blessed. But even the monthly reunion weekends were much more peaceful than normal.
So you could tell the Holy Spirit was there, and the same thing happened. We were at a weekend at at Radgowski, and we had a chaplain from Robinson, who was kind of overseeing the weekend, and he came, and he said, You know, when you guys came in on Thursday night at 5 o’clock, I saw the Holy Spirit come in, and he said, when you left at 3 o’clock on Sunday, I saw the Holy Spirit leave with you.
One ministry, three programs
It’s that incredible! What we offer is, we have one ministry, but it has 3 separate programs. One program is aimed at the men and women on the inside. And that’s the 3 and a half day retreat. We call it Kairos Men’s and Women’s Inside. Then there’s another component of it which is a monthly follow up reunion, and there’s yet another component of it which is a weekly prayer and share.
That’s one part of the ministry. Another part of the ministry is addressed to youth and there may be other speakers that can embellish on that. That part is directed to Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire. And then the third, Kairos Women’s Outside.
That’s an outgrowth of the inside ministry, where we try to be supportive of the families of incarcerated men and women. Wives, mothers, girlfriends meet with us because we’ve learned over the years they’re incarcerated, too. They may be on the outside, but they’re suffering, and they, in order for the whole family to heal. It’s important that we reach out to both parts of the family. So that’s what our ministry is.
What is the Kairos method?
How does it work? Well, it’s very highly structured. We’ve got this book. This is the Kairos, sort of our Bible, Silver Manual it’s called, and every member of every team has to have 34 to 36 hours of training in what’s in this manual before they can ever go in. And they have to have that training each and every retreat that we go in. It isn’t just a one-and-done, it’s every single time. So there’s a Kairos method that exists, and we follow the Kairos method.
The Kairos method has been proven to improve the climate on the inside and to reduce recidivism, recidivism when they get to the outside.
What does the weekend actually consist of? Well, there’s 4 days, and the first day is encountering Kairos. The second day they encounter themselves. The third day they encounter Jesus, and they have a forgiveness ceremony that’s incredibly powerful. And then, on the fourth day, they learn to encounter others, and we share with them the expectations of how to bring Christ to other inmates in the prison.
So that’s what we’re all about. We’re really not about what’s going to happen to people in the next year or two. We want to deal with people that are going to be inside for a good long while, so that we can help improve the environment for them.
At the weekend we have groups that take on the characteristics of a family. Everybody meets at a table. There’s 6 inmates, and there’s 3 Kairos people, and it’s always the same. So as the weekend goes on, they develop trust, and they develop relationships with people. And then we come back with our monthly reunions. Same people come back. They get to see the same people over and over and over again.
First steps to go back into MacDougall
David Cameron. Kairos Prison Ministry. At MacDougall, we were going to start with reunions on some Saturday of each month. On August 25, 2023 we had 5 individuals that attended training at MacDougall. So we’ve been trained, and we’re on the cusp of being able to get in for a reunion.
So we’ll get a foothold and then the reunion. We have a musician and we’ll implement the reunions again and try to get a critical mass of guys believing so we could work with the chaplain to take the next step, maybe, and have a weekend. Pray about that. The chaplain there, Thomas Wright, and also the counselor Colombo are wonderful, wonderful individuals.
So you know, I’m kind of optimistic about it and give prayers for that.
The Connecticut rule
Scott Hamel, Kairos Prison Ministry. I’ve been involved with Kairos for many years, and most recently up here in Connecticut. And we did have a vibrant program going until the pandemic hit.
My biggest concern in Connecticut is this Connecticut rule. At least it applied to us that we could not invite any inmates to our weekends unless they were registered as Protestant. And my understanding is, it goes back many years, that we had to declare ourselves as a Protestant ministry in order to just come in and get started. So perhaps Unity Connecticut can join forces. Pray about that and open that door if everyone else has experienced it.
Opening again at Manson Youth Institution, high-security, for youth aged 14 – 21
Scott. Do you want to say anything about the youth? I’ve had the privilege to serve on several youth weekends before the pandemic at Manson, which is in Cheshire. And my recollection is that last weekend was the ninth one we’ve had there. Our Advisory Council chairman passed away sadly. And the ministry itself was frankly floundering a little bit with interest from volunteers going in when the pandemic hit. We’ve communicated with many of the volunteers via email just about a year ago to try to spark interest again. We got very little response. So now it’s a matter of prayer. We do have one volunteer that’s been in close contact with the chaplain there. He actually has been allowed to go in and do worship services, but it’s just been one on one. So we do have an in, if you will, into the institution. So that’s a little bit of good news.
“I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Matthew 25:36
Ministries inside for women
My name is Liefy Wheeler. I’m the chairperson for Kairos women’s Inside here in Connecticut. I work very closely with Sheila Cooley and we had planned and prepared to go into York CI November 15 to 18, 2023. It would have been our 19th weekend and the first since Covid shut us down. So it’s been a 3 year hiatus. We were looking forward to it. However, it was cancelled by the Department of Correction. Sheila may be able to talk more about it, but Sheila and Desiree Fortier met with the Warden about having the weekend just this week, and they got crazy favor. We’re just praising God. The Warden and Reverend Burnett, just for enthusiastic not only supportive but encouraging. Things like you know. They went to talk about what we’re gonna bring in. And years past we had lists, and you’d have to, you know, how many reams of paper, how many sheets of paper, etc. So they were gonna get that out of the way, and the warden said, I’m not concerned with what you bring in. This is nuts. This is wonderful.
And so we have the weekend. The reunions have started and which is wonderful, but the girls, the ladies are hungry. They love Kairos and the news about Kairos is all over the prison, so we hope this will be very well attended at the prison. They allow 42 residents. So we’ll need roughly 25 to 30 volunteers in order to accommodate that many residents. So our biggest need right now is volunteers.
Recovering from the Covid shutdown is a challenge sometimes, and getting back in contact with your active members from before and getting the enthusiasm back up to do all the training. We all know here that Kairos is a huge time commitment. To do a weekend. It’s 36 hours of training before you even go in, and the weekend you go in is wonderful, but it is exhausting. There is no way, and say it’s not, but the blessings are just tremendous, as we all know.
And added to that, of course, we have prayer and share, which is like, Allan said, a weekly go in where we actually try as Kairos to back out of things and let the ladies, you know, do their own groups and share and prayer and build that community. Because we can’t always be there. We’ll go in for a weekend. We’ll come in for reunions as Kairos, and we leave again.
So you know, we want to bring the love of Christ to them. We want them to develop a relationship with Christ, to get to know Him, and then to be able to be that shining light within the prison.
Several years ago, I first tried to mention prayer and share, and I was shut down by the previous warden nicely but firmly. And now it’s okay. So we’re looking to get that active, too. We are so excited for the blessing. Like, I said, we do need volunteers, and I think that that’s true of every Kairos weekend.
My heart is also for Kairos Torch for youth, which was vibrant (in CT) and then got hit by the death of its chairman, and we had very, very experienced, very senior people doing that team so they need to get back in. They need volunteers. They need an Advisory Council. So that’s what Kairos would ask from all of you.
Okay, I’m very happy to come and do a talk with any church that needs it. Thank you.
Ministries outside for women
Kairos Outside is a 2 ½ day Christian Weekend designed to demonstrate God’s grace and love through Christian support for women who have been impacted by incarceration. These ladies live with their own “sentence.” They often live lonely and secret lives, feeling they would become outcasts if others knew about their imprisoned loved one. Kairos Outside provides them a safe environment which offers them unconditional love and acceptance in a Christian setting and creates an opportunity for a relationship with God. Together with Kairos Inside, Kairos Outside helps to unite families impacted by incarceration.
Prison Fellowship
Bernie Norman, Regional Director, Prison Fellowship. I retired from teaching last year, and I’ve been a bi-vocational pastor teacher, and thought I was going to be a full time pastor, and God said, No, you’re not.
You have some young men whose lives you’re building into. They’re the future of the church. They’re the ones that I’m gonna lead the church into the future. I’ve got something else for you. And I said, What’s that, Lord? And he said, Well, next to saving you. What was the second greatest thing I’ve done in your life? …and it’s really that he’s given me a second chance.
And he said, I’ve got a ministry for you. I’ve known about Prison Fellowship for a long time, 40 years ago. When I first got married I was in a small group with a fellow named Sal Galteri, who brought me up to the Brooklyn Correctional facility. And that’s where God kinda opened my heart to prison ministry.
…and so we’ve been supportive of Prison Fellowship for quite some time. The fact that I am serving with him now is such a privilege and an honor. I’ve never met so many great people. I’ve never met so many great volunteers, and even this morning being with you, and I’ve met with Mel, and I know Jere [Stone] a little bit. This is such an honor to be here.
Prison Fellowship Academy
And so, as I went into the position, you know, we only have one facility in Connecticut that has a Prison Fellowship right now. Prison Fellowship Academy, and that’s at York CI. And we’re hoping to get into more facilities. That’s one of the reasons why I’m here.
This morning is just to network. That seems to be what God has for me to do at this time, and we have many volunteers who are praying. But it’s interesting, because, initially, I kind of felt like. Gee! I feel like I’m reestablishing the name of Prison Fellowship again here in Connecticut.
And the Lord said, Well, Bernie, that’s partly true. You’re really reestablishing the name of my son Jesus Christ. And so when I think of the wall that Nehemiah rebuilt, I see that as such a picture of Jesus in the Old Testament.
And so He’s saying, if you would keep that in focus, not reestablishing the name of Prison Fellowship , but reestablishing the name of Jesus Christ. You’ll have favor. And so that’s what that’s what we’ve been about at Prison Fellowship, really. And when you put all the pieces together, there’s a strong emphasis on re-entry today which is definitely needed. But I see Prison Fellowship as a pre-entry program.
That you can’t have re-entry without pre-entry. And so you know our Prison Fellowship Academies, and you know a lot about Prison Fellowship through Angel Tree and Angel Tree camps and things like that. But our Academy, our year long Academy, with a research based curriculum and completely faith based is really changing lives. We’ve only been in the women’s facility for about 10 weeks.
And the response we’re getting from the women is just tremendous. And so we are praying all throughout the State. Volunteers pray for open doors in Connecticut. . I met with Dr. Michael Christie, and with the Urban Alliance.
And I just find myself God’s just saying, just continue to create networks, cause it’s all gonna come together.
And you know Psalm 27:14, it says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” and that’s a tough one for me to wait on that, but His timing is always perfect. I’m so thrilled to be here and learn more about the other prison ministries that are going on, those of you that have tremendous experience.
I met Mel just one time, and just fell in love with him and his heart. And I’m sure, as we sit here today, that our hearts are all beating in the same direction.
More on Prison Fellowship Academy
And so if you have any questions about Prison Fellowship .Our Prison Fellowship Academy. We meet for a whole year, and we meet twice a week in our women’s program. We have 6 volunteers on a Tuesday night, and they’re doing one curriculum. It’s a video based curriculum. We’ve partnered with Peacemaker Ministries. We’ve partnered with Alpha, We’ve partnered with Celebrate Recovery. So one evening is kind of video driven. But the idea is to get everyone into small groups where people are writing and sharing. And the other evening is the Change Company.
And in that we’re doing things. That’s the curriculum based on personal growth and responsible thinking, managing my life and so forth. And so we just feel that this is enormous and a big part of the re-entry program. This is what I call pre-entry, if you will for those incarcerated.
Church prison ministries such as Second Chance Churches
Jessica Sanderson, Urban Alliance: I’m the Associate Executive Director, Urban Alliance. We’re a Christian nonprofit. We’re located in East Hartford, and we do two different things. One, we support outreach ministries, we have grants training and we mobilize volunteers.
Urban Alliance has all kinds of different supports specifically for a Christian outreach effort. In the area of collective impact, we work to bring the body of Christ together to collaborate, because we know that we can do more when we work together often to address needs in a community. And so one area where we have been working is around re-entry. That’s what Bishop McKissick alluded to. We have an initiative called Second Chance Churches. It’s actually led by a steering committee of pastors. And I’m also a part of that steering committee. We represent a bunch of different churches there.
And with Second Chance Church, what we’re wanting to do is identify churches in the community. It’s kind of Connecticut wide. So we have a concentration right now around the Hartford Central Connecticut area, probably mostly because that’s where Urban Alliance and a number of the steering committee churches are located. But over time we want to identify more churches that are second chance churches.
What is a second chance church?
So you might ask, what is a second chance church? It is a church where both the leaders and the congregation desire to just welcome returning citizens where they want to just to create a safe, welcoming community.
Every second chance church has a mentor. It could be one. It can be a team of mentors that are identified. And those mentors are where we offer training. We offer support to them. And they’re actually like, I would say, probably one of the most important pieces of this, because the mentors are paired with a returning citizen. And it’s a mix like mentoring is relational support. Right? It’s just helping the person have someone that they feel safe with. And they’re connected to. It’s helping that returning citizen really engage in the church community. That could be a Bible study, different discipleship efforts, you know, it’s different, depending on what the church offers, but helping that person to really connect in. And we recognize that people have a lot of different needs, and the Church isn’t necessarily going to meet all of them. But the mentor is trained on just helping that returning citizen connect to whatever services or programs in the community that would be helpful. So that’s where we offer a lot of training on all of these different pieces, so that mentors and churches feel supported.
As then Bishop McKissick also mentioned, we have two second chance church gatherings every year, where we’re bringing everyone together, and really celebrating impact learning together. One was held Saturday, September 16, 2023 at Glory Chapel. If you are interested in engaging with Urban Alliance, because you know your ministries, we can support you similarly to how we support other ministries. That’s one opportunity. And we would also love, if you are representing a church for you to consider becoming a second chance church.
The broader our network the better. We’re going to be able to connect returning citizens into faith communities on the outside.
Living Hope Church in Shelton, CT
Pastor Pat Shouvlin, I’m down in Trumbull, Connecticut, and go to church at Living Hope Church in Shelton. I’ve been working with Chaplain Michael Christie, at Bridgeport Correctional. Before Covid, we had a strong ministry there. And other churches, other guys are involved. Thursday is going in for Bible study. Post Covid, we now are fortunate we get back in. So now it’s building on the back end. So we’re in.
There’s a course. Michael Christie is the Protestant chapel chaplain, and they have a Catholic chaplain as well. It’s great just to get back in. And we definitely need to get more volunteers.
But I love hearing from Prison Fellowship and Kairos and also Jessica, thinking about our church being a second chance church, which would be great. Thanks for including us. Great to connect with all the different ministries, and see what the Lord’s doing, what the Holy Spirit’s doing.
Shiloh Baptist Church in New London, CT
I’m Winston Taylor. I’m the lead for our prison ministry at Shiloh Baptist Church in New London, Connecticut, where our Bishop is Reverend Watts. I’ve been doing prison ministry for over 25 years. I was part of Prison Fellowship with Sal Galtieri. Many years ago I went into 6 prisons. I’ve been at JB. Gates, York, Radgowski, Corrigan and Manson youth.
So basically, what we do is either have Bible study or we have church religious services as well as entry services. We basically try to use some of the Prison Fellowship information. And basically we just try to reach the inmates. The men and women, and the youth, for where they are, you know, wherever they are. Help them to re-entry. We also combine fatherhood. Just a whole bunch of leadership stuff. So I add a whole bunch of stuff. I’m a social worker by trade. I’ve worked for the department of children and family as a supervisor for over 30 years. So I use some of my social work as well as my community engagement skills to go into the prisons. And I’ve been trying to collaborate for 13 years.
Prison Awareness & Prevention Gatherings
We develop the annual Prison Awareness & Prevention Gatherings, now going on our thirteenth year. And what we’ve been trying to do is invite everybody, the whole community from all over the State of Connecticut to come together to deal with the issues. This year our topic is united. We stand in empowering the next generation, united.. And what we want to look at this year is the mental health crisis for young people, tools for success in attending school and pursuing careers, becoming a change agent using your voting power, and mentorship and crime prevention.
These could be panel discussions, or they could be workshops, and my biggest concern is that we’ve been hit big by Covid. Volunteers are few. Many of my volunteers are in their eighties and can no longer do the ministry. Now I’m trying to reach the younger generation.
Gathering on the premises of Mitchell College
The 13th annual Community Prison Awareness & Prevention Gathering met at Mitchell College in New London, CT October 21, 2023. We’re located the conference there because we want to get youth more involved. The college level younger people in their twenties and thirties. We’ve got to get them more involved to take the panel to run with what we’ve been doing for many years. A lot of our members are getting older and have health challenges. So we have to take this back to our churches as well as our community to get young people involved.
Providers invited to share
I’m still in the planning process. We have providers like you coming. If you want to share your ministry, your information, we’ll allow all of you to come to share. I’ve been going to some of the mental health rehab places, for example, SCADD in New London and the APT Foundation in New Haven which offers treatment programs for substance abuse. Because of the diversity of so much stuff we can do, I go into the places with the men where they stay as they work on their substance abuse.
I’m sharing spirituality. I’m sharing the transition to re-entry. You know what you need to do to get your spiritual life together. So that’s been very helpful. Covid knocked some of that down. Until just recently I went to the APT Foundation. That’s another area that we could work in. And the last thing I wanted to say is, God has been so good and it’s hard to find PE again. It’s hard to find PE people to come in.
Persevere to get approval to volunteer inside
Recently I filled out my application for the prison again. This would be Protestant. This would be Bible study, and this would be religious services and also I’m interested in going back to York. The process of getting to the prison is so cumbersome. They lost my application and information two times. So you have to really not give up. You have to always say, Okay, eventually I’ll get in there. So I’m looking.at going into York, the men’s prison. And then York to do Bible study and to do re-entry, some work like that, and continue to work with my community. Work with you, all of you in the community, the various providers, mental health, social work, skill, all those providers, because, I think the problem is, the churches we have to come together. we have to support one another’s ministries, because we are all in this together.
Re-entry ministries
David Stubbs, HomeBridge Ventures. Good morning, everybody. I’m David Stubbs. I’m the co-founder and president of HomeBridge Ventures, which is re-entry in Bridgeport. I’ve been part of Kairos for 10 years. For all of us who worked in the prisons, we keep hearing the stories of the systemic and personal barriers that people face on the outside. About 4 years ago, I felt the call to start up a re-entry program and found the model of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, led by Father Greg Boyle.
So we have built that operation, and we started up 9 months ago in downtown Bridgeport. Our mission is to try to break the recycle of recidivism through transformative relationships, trauma, responsive job training, placement and a supportive community for justice-involved people leading to healing and gainful employment.
So our community center in downtown Bridgeport is really a safe space where men and women in reentry can come. We have programs of men’s and women’s empowerment, financial literacy, computer literacy. And then one-on-one counseling. We’ve got a computer lab, we’ve got reading rooms, we’ve got a kitchen. So it really is meant to be a place, a safe place where people can come, heal and form relationships. So yeah, we’re up and running for 9 months. In the last 30 days we’ve had 65 people come into our center. So that’s a brief summary of where we are.
Scott Semple Encouraged Volunteers in Prison Ministry
The former commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Correction, was the keynote speaker at the Kairos Prison Ministry statewide Fest in Middletown, CT, January 4, 2020.
He said what the incarcerated in correctional facilities need most is relationships with volunteers who bring hope where there is chaos.
I was teaching and I come from a large family and had a lot of student loans. And a friend of mine who was a corrections officer said they hired people in the summer when corrections officers are on vacation.
That was 30 years plus ago and I went all the way through the ranks and ended up becoming commissioner.
I met Kairos in 2009 or 2010. They came to visit a specialized facility called the Garner Correctional Institution. Garner is a specialized facility that deals with people, a lot of whom have serious mental illness. But they also have what we refer to as general population, standard everyday incarceration people. It started with the commissioner at that time, Leo Arnone. He said I want you to talk with these folks from Kairos to see if you’re interested in doing the program at Garner. I was attracted to the faith-based aspects of it.
Kairos brings hope into Correctional Facilities
I think what’s most important for you to understand is that it means a lot to incarcerated people when someone volunteers their time to come into these correctional facilities, and give them some semblance of hope. Without hope there’s chaos.
And Kairos brings hope into our correctional facilities. It complements everything else that goes on to try to introduce change in people in such a justice system, especially those at the back end of the system.
Prisoners need relationships
And I can tell you, you know that, incarcerated people appreciate it. And they appreciate the staff for allowing you to come.
So often times people will ask me, they come up with a lot of ideas, “What can we do to influence change in the people who are at the back end of the justice system?” And it’s complicated, right? A lot of people use terminology such as evidence-based programming and things of that nature. Well, in programming you need fidelity, you need a mechanism to measure it, they do meta-analysis, they do all kinds of analytics, to make a determination whether what they’re offering the population is actually having an impact.
But talk to the consumer, talk to the incarcerated people. They appreciate programming. But what they appreciate more and what they need more is relationships. Especially people who come in on their own to offer their assistance, people who volunteer their own time.
I often provide an example. I don’t remember anything that I learned in 5th grade, but I remember Mr. Mubilio(?). He loved me, cared about me and influenced me to do good things in my life, because he was passionate about what he did … as an educator.
So what I would encourage you to do is to be passionate about what you do, in your interactions in changing the life of these people that need your help. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. And I’m very, very pleased to see the expansion of Kairos.
Work continues to reform the system
And I’ve watched, from behind my new domain, I’m a consultant now, some of the things Kairos is doing. I’m good with my new domain. And some things post-incarceration. I can’t tell you what a difference that makes in the lives of people. So often times when I was a commissioner, I was very progressive in trying to reform the Connecticut correctional system to be a more humane and dignified agency or system. We should care about the system.
[Question] “What about the victims?” [Answer] We should care about the victims. But everyone’s a victim. Everyone’s had some level of trauma in their life.I walked into a diner in Litchfield County where I live, one of those that has a senior citizen table. And they said, “That’s the guy who lets everybody out.”
What is Department of Corrections supposed to do?
Society in general has the wrong perspective of what Corrections is supposed to do. We’re not supposed to punish.
So when I went back, so I said to the senior citizen table, I have one question, “What would you do if it was your child, someone you love, how would you want him treated?”
You have to remember in the work that you do that the general public doesn’t understand the complexity of the interactions you have with incarcerated people. They don’t understand the fact that most of them have been through serious levels of trauma during the course of their life and more likely during the course of their incarceration, because things happen inside correctional facilities.
And they don’t understand that the people who are interacting with incarcerated people have also been exposed to trauma.
The importance of reforming the system
So I always tell people who ask me and criticize, “Why would we want to take a more progressive reform approach?” The fact of the matter is we owe it to the victims that the people who end up in the system don’t do it to anybody else. And everyone relates to that. And that’s part of your job. That’s part of why the state is leaning on you. That’s why the agency leans on you. Your work is extraordinarily important.
It’s not about feeling good after a retreat, but the follow-up that you do and the relationships that you have. Appropriate relationships with the people that need your help.
And their families, because most people who are incarcerated have relatives that are incarcerated or children that are victimized or traumatized. How hard it is for a child not to have their parent present.
[Question] “What are you doing now?” I opened my own consulting company. And I travel in Europe and in the states. I’ve been to Germany three times. Bringing back some aspects of European models dealing with 18 to 25 year old young people and what we have done with reentry.Thank you for having me.