Corrections_Today_November_December_2020_Vol.82_No.6

nEWS&vIEWS

Correctional Chaplain Perspectives

Reaching out over the wall By Hans Hallundbaek and Sharon Griest Ballen

B y definition, a prison is a place of secure confine - ment for those sentenced to a period of separation from society for committing a crime. Only in rare instances does that mean a prison itself is isolated from a surrounding community. In reality, no prison is an island, and the majority of more than 1,800 state and federal prisons in the U.S. are surrounded by vibrant

communities, some even located in heavily populated areas, such a Sing Sing, San Quentin and Attica. On a practical and physical level, all prisons are tied in closely with the community in which they are located, through a host of community-based services, such as transportation, healthcare, mail, in - ternet and water and sewer systems. In addition, the local community

serves as an ideal labor resource pool for recruiting correctional employees. Increasingly, prison administra - tions, while struggling to meet ever tightening budgets, recognize that reaching out over prison walls to the community can assist in fulfill - ing their custodial and correctional responsibilities. However, it some - times takes an extra nudge from an unsuspecting source to open up to such new possibilities and opportuni - ties. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has served as one of those nudges, which at the same time has proven to be an especially serious threat to prison staff and inmates housed in tight quarters. In the fall of 2019, before the emergence of what would become a global pandemic, a town hall meet - ing, entitled “Adopt-A-Prison,” was held in Bedford, NY, a small village in bucolic Westchester County, just north of New York City. That town hall, organized by Interfaith Prison Partnership (IPP), convened over 100 local community members includ- ing representatives from New York state’s Department of Corrections

Photo courtesy Angela James Photography via Sharon Griest Ballen Amy LaManna, superintendent of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, one of the facilities involved in the Adopt-A-Prison event last fall.

8 — November/December 2020 Corrections Today