Faith in Action: Prison Policy Reform Now!

Faith in Action:  PRISON POLICY REFORM NOW!

This is it!!  Come Sunday, February 9, at 12:15pm, to hear directly from area leaders about prison-related policy reform efforts now underway in Massachusetts.  This is an essential social justice issue, and UU churches across the Commonwealth are involved!

Who will be coming this week to help us understand this issue?

• EPOCA (Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement)

EPOCA’s mission:  Working together to create resources and opportunities for those who have paid their debt to society. 

• North First Parish Social Action Committee on Prison Reform: find out why other UU churches are involved and what they are doing to help.

Other up-coming opportunities to get involved with this effort:

• Saturday, February 8, 10:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington

Taking Action to End Mass Incarceration:  An Organizing Workshop

630 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington, MA  (Arlington Center)

This workshop will help you build practical skills for bringing your congregation and community into the Jobs Not Jails Campaign and the broader movement against mass incarceration.  Jobs Not Jails is a statewide coalition that intends to stop the proposed spending of $2 billion of taxpayer money to build new prison cells and redirect those funds to our communities.  We are collecting signatures on petitions and planning a rally on the Boston Common on April 26.  The suggested donation for lunch will be $10, but don’t stay away if that is a difficulty.  Parking is across Massachusetts Avenue in municipal lots.  This event is sponsored by UU Mass Action and the Mass Incarceration Working Group of First Parish Arlington.

 Please pre-register by emailing end-mass-incarceration@firstparish.info. 

•  Contact Kate O’Dell to ride-share. (508 792 9661 or odellkk@gmail.com

AND:

• April 26, 2014 State House Rally:  JOBS NOT JAILS

Jobs NOT Jails is the newest EPOCA campaign. If current criminal justice policies are not changed dramatically, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will spend $2 billion to build 10,000 new prison units by 2020. Our state has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world - on par with French Guiana and Belarus. There are so few resources, and so many barriers to successful re-entry, that most prisoners released from DYS, county jails, and prison are incarcerated again within 3 years – at a recidivism rate over 60%.  In addition to destroying lives, families, and neighborhoods, prison expansion is crowding out funding for every state service that serves to lift people up. EPOCA is working to effect policy to transition tax dollars to community building, by providing jobs and training as a concrete alternative to poverty, hopelessness and crime.

EPOCA and its allies are building a grassroots groundswell against more prison spending and for reforms that will make such spending unnecessary.   Actions for change include: (1) freezing prison construction, (2) passing wide-ranging criminal justice reforms, (3) re-directing savings into a jobs program targeting low-income, high-crime neighborhoods.  The rally in April is an opportunity to present a Jobs Not Jails petition of 50,000 signatures.