TrustOneKindness

Educate yourself, Advocate for others, Work for policy/legal changes

2) Become involved in an organization with goals for prison/legal changes

3) Visit your state representatives to discuss current laws and need for change

4) Speak out/write letters when you hear jokes or watch cop shows where jokes are made about prison rape

5) Bring your concerns about prisons to your religious leaders

6) Where possible, arrange public dialogues

7) If you belong to a religious organization, start a prison ministry

Give money!

Here are several organizations we respect and support:

There are many, many more. None of us have adequate funding, so your contribution will help

Human Rights Coalition, HRC, Chester, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh www.hrccoalition.org4134 Lancaster Ave., Phila., PA  19104families, activists, change agents, help for individual prisoners
Publication:  The Movement

Decarcerate PA, 21 S. 12^th St., Phila., PA 19107, 267-217-3372
policies, laws, demonstrations

Pennsylvania Prison Society, 345 N. Broad St. Suite 300, Phila., PA 19107, 215-564-6005   www.prisonsociety.org Started in Ben Franklin’s living room.Monthly publication Graterfriends
Public forums, legislative efforts, programs for re-entry, families, visitation programs

Real Cost of Prisons, 5 Warfield Place, Northampton, MA 01060  info@realcostofprisons.org
Covers national issues, promotes writers, artists in prison, in-depth articles on issues of incarceration, education

Women Who Never give Up, 110 Marter Ave. #209, Moorestown, NJ 08057  www.wwng.org, 856-956-6837
NJ-based grass roots organization dedicated to helping families get justice in our criminal justice and prison systems

THINGS TO PONDER & EXPLORE WHILE THINKING ABOUT THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Annual cost to incarcerate someone in Pennsylvania                                                $42,339.00
(From the Vera Institute, “The Price of Prisons”)

Annual cost to incarcerate an older prisoner in PA with a sentence of Life Without Parole, LWOP           approx. $100,000

Annual cost to educate a child at Strathhaven High                                      approx. $12,000.00

Annual cost to educate a child at Chester/Upland High                                   approx. $6,000.00

What’s on the federal budget of $33.5 billion plus $5.4 billion outside budget and what’s not:  Collateral costs, health care, pensions, hospitalization of prisoners, capitol costs, legal judgments, statewide administrative costs beyond corrections, welfare for families, private prisons

What about re-entry and post-incarceration syndrome? (And PTSD pre-incarceration?) Solitary confinement? Juvenile lifers?

What about Nixon’s War on Drugs? The War Against Gun Control? Who profits?

Who profits from prisons? Like the auto industry, who are those profiting from selling “parts”(toilet paper?) to the Department of Corrections? Corporate jets for CCC of America!

What about prison rape? Estimates one out of five are raped within less than a week after incarceration by staff or other prisoners. More than 250,000 a year. PTSD? Public safety?

Why is PA one of only a few states with LWOP? Who benefits?

What about the estimated 10,000 to 50,000 innocent people who go to prison each year at a cost of approx. $20 million?

What are the effects on families, communities?

What can be done to reduce corrections budgets? What groups resist change? Why?

Why does the United States incarcerate more of its citizens, one out of every ninety-nine, than any other country in the world?

How does the torture in our prisons affect each of us spiritually?

What are alternatives? Houses of Healing within communities? What do other countries do??