Corrections_Today_November_December_2020_Vol.82_No.6

Correctional Chaplain Perspectives

and Community Supervision (DOCCS); the superintendents from Bedford’s two women’s prisons — Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and Taconic Correctional Facility — along with elected town, county and state officials. The meeting included 18 prison volunteer organizations. The goal was to explore further cooperative efforts between the two women’s correctional facilities and community members. At the time, this seemed like a reasonable task since the two prisons held less than 1,000 women total, and the population of the town of Bedford is about 18,000. The Adopt-a-Prison event was based on the following premises, ac - tions and activities: –– As an interfaith organization, IPP believes that “love your neighbor as yourself” is a verb, not a noun. It is an action item. If we can adopt our highways, why not our prisons? –– IPP organized a meeting with the town supervisor and the superintendents of the two New York State women’s prisons in Bedford, NY. This group met for two years to plan the Adopt- A-Prison program event; –– The town supervisor invited local, county and state elected officials to speak at the event; –– The superintendents invited DOCSS representatives, includ - ing those at the state level, to attend; –– IPP invited 18 different organi - zations involved in prison work, from “Puppies Behind Bars,” a dog-training program; to “Hour Children,” a program to sup - port families during a mother’s

Photo courtesy of Sharon Griest Ballen

Boxes of bars of soap, which were donated by the community for the women in prison, on the porch of the Church House of the Katonah Presbyterian Church, Katonah, NY.

incarceration, including an infant nursery inside the prison, and to help families get back on their feet upon release; –– Each elected official was given two minutes to speak; –– Each of the 18 organizations was given one minute to speak in the form of a “human slide show;” –– Each organization and DOCCS were provided a table set up around the room with their handout materials and a staff person attending the table; –– After the presentations, the at - tendees were allowed free time to go to the tables of the organi - zations that interested them and learn more about examples and choices of ways in which they could each “adopt” their local prisons and the women within. Within four months after this historic town meeting, because of COVID-19, all the promising words of cooperation had to be translated into immediate action. That immediate action started in the form of a recommendation to the Town Board on the part of the town supervisor, Chris Burdick. He found

the Adopt-A-Prison event to be so successful that he initiated the forma - tion of a Prison Relations Advisory Committee (PRAC) to the town of Bedford. PRAC was established by vote of the Town Board in January 2020 as the direct result of the IPP Adopt-A-Prison program in Septem- ber. Burdick asked Sharon Griest Ballen, the program coordinator of the IPP, to chair the PRAC, as she was uniquely positioned to carry for- ward the Adopt-A-Prison work from IPP directly into the work of PRAC. The overall mission of PRAC is to unite those on the outside with The overall mission of PRAC is to unite those on the outside with those on the inside of the prison walls; to “adopt our prisons.”

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