CJR News

Short articles highlighting PF national affiliate justice work.

Open Court in Prison

For years Prem Kumar, executive director of Prison Fellowship Malaysia, has watched remand prisoners languish in prison as they await trial. Recently, Prem shared his concerns about the situation of 332 remand prisoners with a friend visiting his home. This friend, a former deputy public prosecutor and current Manager of Sabah Courts, decided to see what could be done. He asked Prem to use his role as a Visiting Justice (position created in the Malaysian prison legislation to inspect prisoners) to ask these remand prisoners if they wanted to plead guilty. As a result, the first Open Court session in prison was held on 15 October.

PF Bolivia Launches the Sycamore Tree Project®

“We are really enjoying Sycamore Tree,” was the opening line of a recent e-mail from Julie Noble, a volunteer with the PF Bolivia chapter in Oruro. Launched on October 4, this first pilot project has enthusiastic support from both the prison administration and the volunteer facilitators. The prisoner participants were recruited from among the parents of the children who attend the ministry’s Angel Tree Centre since there is an existing relationship with them.

APAC Brazil Receives Government Support for Expansion

A few months ago, PF Brazil and the Tribunal of Justice of the State of Minas Gerais signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of nine new APAC Social Reintegration Centres (name given to most APAC facilities) and the expansion of two existing facilities. These 11 new units will add 1,070 spaces to the Brazilian Prison System.

New Programme Taps Prisoners’ Creativity

PF Netherlands continues to see growth among the prisoner participants in their Sycamore Tree Project® for youth, known as SOS (Spreken over Schuld). One prisoner participant recently noted that it has been difficult to think about the harm he has caused others and the bad choices he’s made, “but, I kept coming to SOS, and now I am glad I did,” he says.

Sycamore Tree: A Chaplain’s View

In June this year, PF Scotland completed the fifth Sycamore Tree Project® in Shotts Prison. The seven prisoner participants in the programme were recruited by the Prisons Chaplaincy Unit. After the course, the Senior Chaplain, the Rev. Allan Brown, provided this report.

PF Fiji Launches Re-Entry Project

Recently, PF Fiji launched Operation Second Chance to assist prisoners in their transition from prison to the community. Funded in part by the Australian Agency for International Development, the re-entry programme will help prisoners address issues of addiction, personal health, relationships, and life-skills. Twenty high-risk offenders have been chosen for the pilot based on their willingness to participate and recommendations from prison staff.

PF Germany Celebrates 5 Years of Prisma

On 14 September, an estimated 1,000 people participated in the five year anniversary celebration of the Prisma programme at Youth Farm Seehaus. Various speakers praised the work of Prisma including the mayor of Leonberg and the department chief from the Ministry of Justice in Baden- Wuerttemberg State.

Speaking for the Forgotten

The old adage, “children are to be seen and not heard,” was not supposed to apply to the justice system. Unfortunately, children can often become voiceless victims in an overburdened justice system that is lacking in resources. That is what Vijula Arulanantham, PF Sri Lanka Board chairperson, discovered when visiting a juvenile remand home recently. The children here were not all offenders. Many were victims— street children abandoned or neglected.

An Indefinite Wait for Freedom

“Innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t mean much for the nearly 800 prisoners who are crowded into the dirty, dank prison cells of Liberia’s Monrovia Central Prison. Most have yet to be convicted of a crime – some charged with offences as minor as not paying a bill – but they have languished here for years without a trial.

PF Pakistan Helps Change Law

It’s a change that could affect every Christian prisoner in Pakistan. On 4 August 2008, the Governor of the Punjab (the Punjab Province is the country’s most densely populated region) made an unprecedented and much-lauded amendment to the Pakistan Prison Rules of 1978 that allows non-Muslim prisoners to benefit from the same allowance for a remission in their sentences as Muslim prisoners enjoy.

Freeing Prisoners in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, prisoners held in remand indefinitely are called 'no date' prisoners. While the law requires that they be given the opportunity for bail within two years, many are serving as much as three or four years without trial or a bail hearing according to Vijula Aralanantham, board chairperson of PF Sri Lanka. Responding to many requests for assistance received by staff and volunteers visiting prison, the ministry started the Prison Fellowship Legal Aid Team (PFLAT).

Sycamore Tree Project ® in the Solomon Islands

A recent newspaper headline from the Solomon Islands reads, “Prisoners find way to reconcile with victims.’ The article refers to the recent celebration ceremony of Sycamore Tree Project® run by Prison Fellowship Solomon Islands in Rove Central Prison in Honiara.

A Life-Saving Prison

Have you ever wondered if a change in the type of prison could facilitate a change in the prisoner? Read the story of Jefferson to see the impact faith-based prisons are having on prisoners around the world!

Weeding Out the Roots of Resentment

When the harm inflicted continues on a daily basis, it can be hard to forgive the perpetrator. Read how a PF staff member struggled with this issue and learned to forgive.

A Life-Saving Prison

Jefferson knows about the lure of crime. Like so many ex-prisoners, he discovered that freedom from confinement does not mean freedom from problems. When he left prison at the age of 32, Jefferson had to find a job despite the stigma of a prison sentence and Brazil’s 9 percent unemployment rate. With 31 percent of Brazilians living below the poverty line, few seem to have sympathy for the prisoner.

PF Zimbabwe Helping Ex-offenders, Families and Communities Find Healing

Ex-offenders encounter many challenges to living a crime free life once they leave prison. Chief among these are rejection by their families and communities of origin and the fear of revenge on the part of victims or victims' families. As a response to this reality, PF Zimbabwe created the Victim Offender Reconciliation Programme to assist this reintegration process.

Connecting Children and Incarcerated Fathers in Texas

In October 2007, the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) in Texas began a new programme called Storybook Dads. Managed by current inmates, this programme allows men in prison to record their voices reading children’s books.

Sycamore Tree Project® in the Community

Recently, the PF Australia chapter in New South Wales completed its first Sycamore Tree Project® pilot project in the community. This pilot worked with both ex-prisoners and offenders on community sentences. The offender participants volunteer for the programme because they are required to complete a certain number of prescribed courses as a term of their sentences. Sycamore Tree is only one in a range of courses.

Explaining Restorative Justice in Colombia

Dan Van Ness, PFI’s Executive Director of the Centre for Justice and Reconciliation, recently travelled to Colombia to help PF Colombia in its ongoing efforts to promote restorative justice among criminal justice professionals.

Sycamore Tree Project® and PF South Africa

Recently, Douw Grobler, executive director of PF South Africa, reported on the “high level of partnership between PFSA and the Department of Correctional services (DCS)” as seen in the Sycamore Tree Project® (STP). In 2007, PF South Africa signed a service agreement with the DCS to provide STP to 80% of South African prisons within four years. They then provided workshops that trained 136 individuals to facilitate the programme in four different DCS management areas.