Corrections_Today_January_February_2024_Vol.86_No.1

Correctional Chaplain Perspectives

nineteen nineties, the prison system experienced an increasing openness to outside volunteer organizations offering education and training for those incarcerated, and over the last quarter of a century an impressive list of programming has been expe rienced at both Bedford Hills and neighboring Taconic Correctional Facilities. These programs, no longer limited to outreach from religious organizations, present a broad range from the Alternative to Violence (AVP) and Rehabilitation Through the Art (RTA) programs, to full scale college curriculum, including a Mas ter of Theology program recently introduced by New York Theological Seminary. Developing practical job skills Developing practical job training skills is encouraged by the prison system. Next time you call up the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to ask how to get a driver’s license, find a local DMV office or register a new vehicle, you may hear the friendly voice of one of the many incarcerated women who are job training at the DMV Call-in-Center at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Advanced technology has also found its way into the Bedford Hills facility. Like airline pilots have for years trained on sophisticated flight simulators, a similar technology is now available for the training re quired to drive the eighteen-wheeler trucks crisscrossing the continent on our enormous highway-based distri bution system for all kinds of goods and fresh food. A truck simulator has been installed at the Bedford Hills CF, manufactured from actual truck

parts, and featuring a 180-degree forward view on large TV screens, rearview mirrors, 3-d sound systems, and it is programmed to simulate a multitude of road, traffic, and weather conditions, including a tire blow-out. The opportunity to train for a commercial driver’s license (CDL) and a well-paying job upon release is not lost on the incarcerated women, and they are lining up for training. The opportunity to train for a commercial driver’s license (CDL) and a well paying job upon release is not lost on the incarcerated women, and they are lining up for training. Connecting facilities and their communities Between the community out reach, education, cooperation, and volunteering, it is like the town has adopted its two local prisons, simi lar to communities who adopt the State Highway running through their territory. That is exactly what the Town of Bedford has ventured to

do: adopting its female correctional facilities. Not in a hostile takeover, but in a compassionate, measured outreach and in close cooperative efforts with the prison superinten dents of the two facilities and with the New York State Department of Correction. In this community outreach to its local prisons, the past is remembered. An almost forgotten cemetery lo cated between Bedford Hills and the Taconic prison next door holding the remains of about one hundred women and children has been refurbished, and name plates added to gravestones which originally only showed the inmate number assigned. For the last five years, those interred here are remembered annually in a moving All Soul’s Day commemoration presided over by prison chaplain, Deacon Cliff Calanni. Rightfully so, the commu nity has provided in its soil an eternal resting place for those who arrived here as strangers. A vital key to the success of this cooperation between the town of Bedford and the two correctional facilities has been the development of a Prison Relations Advisory Com mittee (PRAC) to the Bedford Town Board. Key members on the PRAC committee are the superintendents of the two correctional facilities, as well as the Bedford Town Supervisor, in addition to prominent community and clergy members. Ellen Calves, Bedford Town Supervisor says, “I am proud of the many steps our town has taken to enhance understanding and seize mutually beneficial opportunities.” She continues, “Before the Adopt-a Prison concept came about and the Town formed the Prison Relations

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