Corrections_Today_Summer_2025_Vol.87_No.2

CORRECTIONAL CHAPLAIN PERSPECTIVES

the project were represented. That was accomplished by appointing 17 volunteer members from the local Bedford community representing legal, social, education, faith, busi ness, mediation, health, security and rehabilitation concerns and included formerly incarcerated people and prison administrators. The current DOCCS Commissioner, Daniel Martuscello III, gives AAP his full attention by attending its bi-month ly meetings. To reinforce the concept of a community initiative, in the fall of 2019, a town hall gathering took place. Almost 100 local participants attended and various nonprofit organizations active in the two prisons had presentation tables. The Adopt-A-Prison program was off to an auspicious start. Adopt-A-Prison is a bold humane initiative that signals to those behind the wall they have not been forgotten, and their future has hope. That fall, few could foresee the oncoming COVID-19 pandemic, forcing the two prisons to close to visitors in early 2020. This set back only accentuated the need for support from the outside, and the PRAC organization sprang into overdrive, organizing with the help of IPP and other PRAC organiza tions donations of hand and face

Photo courtesy Angela James Photography

Daniel F. Martuscello III, Commissioner of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) addressing a 2024 Adopt-A-Prison Town Hall Meeting.

soap, facemasks, disinfectants and cooking plates for the prisoners to prepare meals in their units. During the disastrous pandemic, the AAP community engagement concept “proved it’s mettle” cementing the relationship between the two pris ons and the outside community. It provided a springboard for expand ing the cooperation with new IPP initiatives with its new Director, Jen Mancuso, like: Enhancing Life Skills Programs, Wellbeing Workshops, Thanksgiving Dinner Celebration, Holiday Care Pack ages, Reentry Services and Release Bags. For the increasingly hot sum mers where there is no a/c in the prison units, PRAC partnered with New Hour and Woman2Woman to mobilize the community to install 800 personal fans throughout the facilities. With the help of local congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, $675K in funding was approved from the Federal Infrastructure Bill for installation of a much-needed sidewalk on the high-traffic road

leading to the prisons. To increase attention to the prison cause, IPP organized several public relations meetings at the NYC UN Head quarters to highlight respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for those incarcerated. Visible benefits The AAP community outreach does not forget the close to 100 women and children buried in the Taconic Cemetery. They are com memorated annually in an All-Soul’s Day Ceremony conducted by Prison Chaplain, Deacon Clifford Calanni and attended by an increasing num ber of faith and community leaders. When analyzing the progress accomplished by opening the prison gate to the surrounding community, the view of an innovative approach to incarceration is emerging, based more on collaboration and com munity engagement than isolation and punishment. One of several benefits of this approach is the win/

Summer 2025 | Corrections Today

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