Amazing Grace - watching this will be the best two minutes of your day.

I just love this wee video, brought to my attention by my friend Ross.  It says it all.

Should prisoners have access to the internet?

Prisoners do not have access to the internet and many people think that this is just as it should be.  The longer I work in jails, though, the more I think that, looking at the big picture, this is probably unhelpful.

There are good reasons for not allowing the prisoners access to the internet and I acknowledge that, but I believe the arguments on the other side should carry a greater weight.

Firstly, any "privilege" that is given to prisoners immediately and without fail generates negative headlines in the tabloids.  Journalists and many of the public - and I do understand this - would complain that it is most unfair that those who have broken the law should get something paid for out of the public purse that the law-abiding struggle to afford.

Secondly, there is the danger of furnishing criminals with the ability and the opportunity to increase their criminal activity.  There are two ways that this could happen. 

1) A prisoner previously computer-illiterate who gains expertise on the internet and then manages to secure a mobile phone (these are illegal in jail but there is a trade in them and every now and then a mobile phone, a recharger, or a SIM card is found) could use his new-found communication skills for criminal purposes.  Drug dealers can carry on lucrative business empires from within prison, for example.  Prisoners on remand can intimidate witnesses.  And so on.

2)  A prisoner may use his new-found computer skills when he gets out of prison.  Indeed he may go the whole way and develop an interest in computer crime.  How is the prison to know why the prisoner is keen on participating in education?  It could be (a) a soft option to get out of more physical work parties such as the cookhouse, (b) part of a grand plan for building the criminal career already embarked on, but it could also be (c) a genuine desire to get educated and (d) a determination to get a job and go straight on release.

There are arguments for allowing prisoners access to the internet and, as I say, they seem to me to outweigh the arguments on the other side.

The truth is that many prisoners (I suspect most) really want to keep out of trouble in the future.  Many of them are highly motivated, and have worked very hard during their sentence.  They have tried to address their offending behaviour and the reasons for it.  They have fought and won (at least for now) their addiction battle.  They have done what they could do repair their family relationships.  But as the time draws near for release they are often apprehensive and feel unprepared.  Or - perhaps worse - others don't feel unprepared but feel supremely and misguidedly confident that all will be straightforward when clearly it won't.

We who have not been out of circulation at Her Majesty's pleasure over the past years know that the internet is a huge part of modern life and can only imagine how handicapped we would be by having missed out on it all.

I suspect that even the most low-paid, ordinary, unglamorous job on the outside may involve you being able to send emails to your employer and receive them in return.  Being unable to do so will have a real impact on your employability on release.

Prisoners' families will be internet-literate and this will add to the prisoners' feeling of distancing from them.  Ex-prisoners who know about Google, for instance, will be able to help their kids with their homework projects, and prisoners who know about social networking will be able to know more about what their children are up to.

By no means all prisoners, even if they are highly motivated, will secure employment on release.  They will be most likely be living on a very low income, perhaps just state benefits.  The internet offers great ways to save money.  I am currently expecting the delivery of a pair of curtains for my son's bedroom.  I bought them on E-bay and although they are new and still in their packaging they are pre-owned and therefore I was able to buy them for well below half their value.  Guys coming out of prison could do with knowing about such a thing.

Should prisoners have access to the internet?  I would say that they should. 

Certainly they shouldn't have limitless unsupervised access to the internet.  I think we might feel irked by the idea that they were watching pornography for example, or that they were controlling their drugs empire, or bullying their partners.  Schools, though, can set up restrictions and limitations to what the kids can access and the prisons could do likewise.

I'm not advocating they should get to blog, or use social networking sites or be posting comments on newspaper online sites, but I am arguing for basic internet familiarity, including emails, shopping for bargains, booking tickets, googling facts and so on to be a major part of the education program on offer in our prisons.

Whether you love or hate prisoners (fellow Christians reading this will know which God expects them to do) you should want to see them rehabilitated, if not for their sake then for the sake of potential future victims which could include you and yours.  In the year 2011 I think we need to fact the fact that full reintegration back into society will for most involve familiarisation with the internet.

General Assembly and Gay Clergy.

Of all the subjects discussed at the General Assembly last week, the one which has attracted the most interest from the media has been, inevitably, the one relating to sex.   People sometimes wrongly accuse the church of being obsessed with the subject.  I don't think this is at all fair, for two reasons:

(1) The Church does a HUGE amount of good work in communities all over Scotland and with vulnerable groups.  It is really thrilling at the Assembly to hear the reports of all the work going on, and I am immensely proud to be part of an organisation doing so much for the disadvantaged and needy.  Are the press interested in those things?  Do they get reported?  Not really, considering how much there is to admire.  "Crossreach", the social care arm of the Church of Scotland does a lot of truly wonderful stuff.  So does the "Guild" (formerly "Womens Guild").  So does the Department of World Mission, the HIV/Aids project, and so much else at a national level.  On top of this, in every city, town and village all over Scotland, local congregations are doing a phenomenal amount of good in terms of social care and community projects.  These things are done in the name of Jesus, and are all ways in which Christians communicate in very practical ways the unconditional love of God for everyone.  It is not really our fault as a denomination if the media are not sufficiently interested in these activities.

(2)  The main message of the Church is not a message about sex, or indeed about any other moral or legal or lifestyle issue.  The main message of the Church, often called the Gospel (which means "good news") is this: God loves the world so much that, rather than allowing people to receive the punishment that their sins deserve (and make no mistake we are ALL sin-full), he allowed his own son, Jesus, to take the punishment for us on the cross.  Jesus became a once-and-for-all sacrifice so that WHOEVER (including prisoners of course) believes in him will not die (though their body does) but have wonderful eternal life.  In Prisonworld, prisoners will interpret the word "sin" to mean their index offence; I sometimes find myself at services in prison having to break the bad news that there's a lot more to their sin than their crimes.  Jesus said, for example that the most important two commandments were to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and to love our neighbour (our fellow human being) as much as we love ourselves.  We ALL break them, and probably several times a day.  We all need to hear the Gospel and our sex lives are marginal to that.

Having begun with that preamble I want to say something about the issue that has attracted the media attention because it IS an important one. 

Should the Christian church have homosexuals among its leadership?  This has been the subject of much debate.

The traditional point of view in my denomination and many others has been that (a) God loves every human being unconditionally, (b) God sees heterosexual marriage as the only appropriate place for sexual activity, (c) God loves heterosexuals, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transexuals equally, and (d) it is in no way a sin to be homosexual in orientation.   In view of (a) to (d), therefore, ministers were traditionally expected to be either in a heterosexual marriage or else celibate.

Last week, the Church of Scotland General Assembly voted to consider the possible theological, ecclesiological and legal implications of moving away from this position towards allowing non-celibate gay people to become clergy.

What do I think of this?

To be honest, I am very sad.   This will probably shock my many LGBT friends and relatives because, I trust, you always have found (and I promise always will find) me to be unconditionally accepting of you.  I love you as much as I did.  I love you unconditionally.   However, I also love the Lord.

When I read the Bible it is abundantly clear to me that, whatever I personally may feel, GOD himself disapproves of homosexual practice (as well as heterosexual sin such as adultery etc too of course).   So what I think is irrelevant.  I'm a sinner myself, as all who know me will testify.  Therefore I am a poor judge of what is sin and what isn't.  Just because something doesn't particuarly offend me doesn't mean it's not a sin.  God is holy.  God made the world.   Wee boys playing football will sometimes claim "It's my ball" and that will give them extra say in what the rules are.  The world, shaped like a ball, is God's ball and he makes the rules.  We don't need to love them immediately but need to accept them and work towards understanding why God wants things that way.

The debate at the General Assembly a week ago today resulted in a decision to move in a "trajectory" in the direction of allowing practising homosexuals to be ministers.  This is against the will of the membership as surveyed by a Special Commission questionnaire.  This is against the will of the majority of the worldwide church with whom we do want to retain a real sense of unity.  But more importantly it is clearly against Scripture. 

It is this departure from Scripture that is really what upsets many of us.   I cannot begin to put into words how grieved I am that people genuinely think that people in my position are homophobic.  That is SO not true.  For a living, I love people in spite of their lifestyles.  For the avoidance of doubt let me be clear that I am not  comparing homosexual behaviour with a life of crime.  My point is that I love people in spite of their lifestyles.  If I love the criminal then obviously I love the non-criminal.  I know my heart and I know that I love everyone unconditionally and that clearly and definitely includes my LGBT friends and family.  My greatest fear, indeed, in posting this blog (which has been a decision reached after a lot of thought) is that you guys will be hurt and misunderstand where I am coming from as a rejection of you.

I'm aware that some readers may want to say, "But, AnneDroid, are you saying that only ministers who are without sin at all can be ministers?"  No!  Of course I'm not saying that.  No one is without sin, least of all me.   Ministers are human.  However, there is a higher standard expected of them than of others and that is just the way it is.  Were I to carry on a series of extra-marital affairs (I'm not planning to - I like what I've got) I would not have committed an offence against the law of the land but I would expect the church to take a negative view of it.  Even the least observant among you wouldn't need to look at me long to be suspicious that I am guilty of the sin of gluttony.  I am, and I fight it with varying degrees of earnestness, but what I wouldn't ever do is try to persuade others that gluttony was not a sin but in fact a great blessing.  That's an important distinction.

Some of my fellow clergy who share my understanding of God's will have already decided to leave the Church of Scotland.  Others are still thinking they may well do so.  I'm not going anywhere.  My dad, his brother, my mum's uncle and his uncle before him were CofS ministers.  Perhaps that's got something to do with my desire to stay, I don't know.  But I don't feel God's leading to leave.  Nor does Him Indoors.  So we're staying.  

You can never have too many brothers and sisters!

This week I've been commuting to Edinburgh to the Church of Scotland General Assembly, which is our annual week-long business meeting (with breaks to eat and sleep of course).  A quarter of the denomination's ministers attend each year, and this is my third assembly in the thirteen years since I was ordained, since I had a bit of time off for childbearing/childrearing/good behaviour.

Him Indoors, who is also a minister (not in Prisonworld but in a local church congregation) has also been attending this year.  It's been really lovely to be there together.  After nearly eighteen years of marriage I still quite like being with him... which is good.  :)

One of the lovely things about the General Assembly is that you get to see friends you haven't seen for a while.  That's important as well as what happens in the actual debating chamber.  We all need fellowship and encouragement.  I love my (biological) brother (and my lovely brothers and sisters in law) very much but it's a wonderful thing as a Christian to be part of a worldwide family in which every Christian one meets is "a brother from another mother" and "a sister from another mister".  I've been a Christian so long that I can't remember anything else, but my hunch is that those who're not Christians just can't begin to imagine this brotherliness/sisterliness feeling.  It's great, and I've enjoyed that aspect of this week very much.

As to what's happened in the actual debates, that's important and I'll come back to it in the next couple of days, but meantime I just want to give thanks to God for the encouragement it's been to see friends I haven't seen for ages, and also that I've made a bunch of new friends too.  By tomorrow that may include the waiters and waitresses of JimmyChungs at Waverley who have benefitted a lot from the presence of some of us this week!

Ecumenism/Inter-faith issues in Prisonworld? You gotta laugh...

I was amused to hear this story today from a prison chaplain in another Scottish prison:

A prisoner asked him recently, "See they Muslim c***s?  Are they Protestants or Catholics?"

Big Boys do Cry (and I blame myself).

Recently at work it was my turn for my regular refresher self-defence training.  I hope I never need it but it's good to be prepared.

In the middle of us all throwing each other about the gym I was suddenly struck by a funny thought.  I was distracted at one point by thinking about a bereaved prisoner that I should go and see, and remembering how tearful he had been when I last saw him.  That made me think that I should really get some more paper hankies as the box was empty.  Neither of those were the funny thoughts (obviously). 

What made me smile was the idea that I routinely need to buy paper hankies as one of the tools of my trade (along with teabags etc) and so the conclusion from that could be that perhaps I cause the guys to cry (by offering sympathy, love, prayers, etc) at a greater rate than anyone else in the prison.  In other words, there I am, day by day, with some of the so-called "Scotland's Toughest" and I'm the one who brings on tears the most!

The day after I realised my handkerchief supply had run out, I was listening to another tearful prisoner.  He was really crying and, to be blunt, his nose was producing a lot of output too.  He badly needed a tissue but the only thing I had to give him was a (fresh) wiping up cloth like the one in the picture!

Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Hello long lost blog!

Long time no blog, but think I will get it up and running again.  Limited though my knowledge and understanding of Prisonworld is, I'm in there and I'm listening and learning every day.  Most people in the world are not prisoners/prison staff/families of prisoners, and the big high wall with the barbed wire inevitably means that it is hard for the public to know what it's like in jail, especially given the Total Pile of Crap the tabloids feel free to print on the subject!

What's been happening recently?

Lots that I can't mention, as usual.  But some thought-provoking stuff including:

1)  reflections with chaplaincy colleagues from other jails about just what a weird environment we work in as ministers and how vitally important it is for us to support each other in prayer.  I am the first to admit I am a sinner, albeit I know that God is at work in me sorting out the mess, but I still recognise that working full time in prison is to be a lot of the time in a real old cesspit of sin and the metaphorical stench can get to you after a bit.

2)  the challenge of working as clergy and civil servants at the same time - trying to serve two masters - which of course the Bible says is impossible!  I am a minister and I am an employee of the Scottish Prison Service.  It's a struggle I believe is well worth the effort, but it is an effort sometimes.  There is the constant danger of failing one side or the other of our twofold purpose.

3)  the difficulty of having to watch what one says.  In the Olden Days, it was often said that prisoners would fake religious conversion in order to improve their chances of parole.  This may seem a ridiculous thing to say, but I do believe that one of the results of the secularisation of our society is that things have almost gone the opposite direction.  I sometimes think that if a prisoner mentions his religious experiences, some staff are more likely to send him for a mental health check up than they are to be in some way impressed.  Therefore, I suspect that we as chaplains also have to be careful in case we say things that, whilst totally acceptable in our churches, will be misinterpreted in Prisonworld.  Here is an example - and let me be clear that I didn't say the thing that I wanted to.  I was speaking to a prisoner I have got to know well whose victim was his child who died as a result of the crime.  He is sorry about it and I have tried to be a support to him.  He is unsure whether he believes in God or not, as are lots of people of course.  On one occasion he announced very firmly that were the Lord to appear in front of him, that far from worshipping him, he would kick him in the b***s.  What I would like to ask him, but think I can't is this: "I believe your child is in heaven.  Wouldn't you like the chance to go there one day to be with that child whom you loved and to be able to say sorry?"  If it were to be reported that I'd said that, though, what would happen?  I don't know.  Would I be disciplined?  Possibly.  In Churchworld that would be a perfectly reasonable question to explore.

4)  Some of you may have heard that Rev David Wilkerson died recently following a car accident.  His amazing book "The Cross and the Switchblade" (the first edition of which came out two years before I was born) was a favourite of mine when I was young.  So was "Run Baby Run" by Nicky Cruz who appears in the former book.  The news of David Wilkerson's death caused me to re-read these two books.  I have found myself as stirred by them as I ever was, and would very much recommend them to anyone who's not read them yet.  When I read these books the first time round, as a teenager, it never crossed my mind that I would end up working with people whose lives sometimes have sad similarities to those whom David Wilkerson was called to minister to.

5)  The political landscape in Scotland and the UK has changed with last week's election.  Dramatically and radically changed.  It's exciting to feel like a part of history.  I really do feel for those who have unexpectedly lost their seat after years of faithful service to their constituents but I also feel excited for the new recruits, some of whom did not expect to win and have suddenly had to resign from their jobs and make new plans.  Although the Scottish National Party landslide was in the Scottish election, the consequences will be felt at Westminster too.  Labour's strength in the British government has always been supported by the large number of labour seats in Scotland.  Not so now. 

6)  The Church of Scotland, the protestant and presbyterian denomination I happen to belong to (although I'm really not a denominationalist by nature, just as I'm not party-political) has its General Assembly later this month.  I am a commissioner.  For those who don't know what I'm on about, the General Assembly is the Church of Scotland's annual business meeting.  It lasts for a whole week.  There are too many of us all to attend at once, so each minister and for each minister, one elder, serve on average once every four years.  This year myself and Him Indoors, who is also a minister, are on duty as commissioners.  One of the big issues which the media will be particularly interested in is the debate on whether or not practising homosexual clergy should be allowed to be ordained as ministers in the Church of Scotland.  I can't say any more about that because a previous Assembly agreed that there would be a moratorium on public comment on the issue.  I believe that has been a great blessing, as otherwise those on each side of the debate would be liable to fall prey to the temptation to air their opinions on the subject via the media which would soon descend into an unedifying spectacle.

7)  Above all, my recent reflections have led me to realise that what I most need to be having in my life is the power of the Holy Spirit, and what I most need to be doing is seeking the Lord more fervently in prayer. 

A tribute to Mary Gardner.

This is a photo of Mary Gardner of Wycliffe Bible Translators.  Her picture was on the front page of newspapers today because Mary was the victim of a bus bomb attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

It was my privilege to know Mary many years ago, at a time when I was considering whether I might become a Bible translator myself.  Mary, at that stage, was just finishing her training and getting ready to go overseas to Togo, to begin translating the New Testament for the Ife people.

This was accomplished.  Bible translation is a slow and laborious process but the Ife people got the New Testament in their own language in 2009.

Mary never married and had no children.  She poured out the prime years of her life in the work she felt that God had called her to.  Rather than rest on her laurels after translating the New Testament for the Ife people, she was then studying Hebrew in Jerusalem in order to continue on to the Old Testament.  I remember her as a very gentle, soft-spoken, lovely young woman.

As it says on the Wycliffe website: "Worldwide there are over 300 million people who do not have access to the story of God's love for his people - the story of the Bible - in the language that they understand the best, their 'heart' language".

However, there are many dedicated people like Mary all over the world working to make sure that the Bible will be available in all languages.  Today, I'm sure, many of them will be thinking of Mary's elderly parents, her siblings, her colleagues and the Ife people in their grief.

The Missionary Position.

Many hundreds of years ago, when I was young and had yet to get involved with he who is now Him Indoors, I wanted to be a missionary.

To be honest, the first job I ever aspired to as a child was to be a bin lady.  Note: bin lady not bin woman - I have standards.  That was because I was fascinated (and still am, if you want to know) by bin lorries, or dust carts if you're from the other side of the pond.  I love how they mash up the litter.

However, I soon changed ambition to being a missionary.  I grew up near the David Livingstone memorial in Blantyre.  While my contemporaries were idolising the Bay City Rollers, I was captivated by the story of David Livingstone.  I had a book called "The Great Explorers" in which one of the chapters was about Dr Livingstone.  One of the things that remained in my childish imagination was a picture (not, but not unlike, the one above) illustrating the assertion that David Livingstone died while in prayer. 

When I left school I began studying medicine at university, and read more and more about being a missionary.  However, my medical career was very short-lived and after two years at university I knew it wasn't for me.  To tell the truth I'm so squeamish I couldn't even now watch a whole episode of Casualty.  When I go to give blood I struggle even with the pin prick thing they do on your thumb to check you're not anaemic.

The missionary thing wasn't out of my system, though.  A few years later, I became very interested in Wycliffe Bible Translators.  In fact I completed some of the application process to become a translator and although in the end it wasn't God's plan for me I still take an interest in their work.  Today I came across this fascinating gem in their prayer diary:

"Getting the Right Word.
Translators want to get the right word out! So they must ask the right question. For example, in order to translate “carry one another’s burdens”, the Koma translators in Ghana had to choose between mili (carry on the back), dogi (carry on the hip), vigi (carry on the shoulder) and chii (carry on the head)! So which word did they use? (Hint: What do Koma people carry where?). Please pray for translators who have to make difficult word choices to convey the right meaning.

Answer: Babies are carried on the back, toddlers on the hip; tools on the shoulder, and heavier items like water pots on the head. So they used chii".

This year is the 400th of the publication of the King James Bible in English - for a long time the most common English translation of the Bible.   Whilst it remains popular, many of us now use a more modern translation.  I like many of the modern translations, including the New Living Translation, the New International Version, the Good News Bible and others.  Yet there are many peoples around the world who don't have a choice of translation as we do.  Many don't even have one book of the Bible in their own language.

As we English-speakers mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible this year, let's remember and perhaps even give some of our money, or our prayers, in support of the efforts of Wycliffe Bible Translators and others to make sure that the good news gets to "the ends of the earth".

"Just as I am"... Give Him all you have!

Luke 21:1-4 says, "While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box.  Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two small coins.

 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.”

I happened to read these verses at tea-time in the prison tonight and was thinking about them an hour later when I was listening to a conversation between two prisoners.  One of them was asking the other to help him write a C.V. for him to apply for a job on release.  He admitted that he had never had a job in his life before (he's not particularly young but has been in and out of prison since he was a teenager).  The guy he was asking to help him pointed out that there were lots of things he'd done in prison that he could mention in his C.V. and promised they would work on it together tomorrow.

I couldn't help making connections between my Bible reading and that conversation.   Earlier in the day I was at a 4-hour long meeting at which I'd been marvelling at the intellect and gifts of many of the attendees.

(When I was a wee girl, I used to think it must be great to go to a "meeting".  I wasn't very sure what a meeting was, but I wished that I could go to one.   Now at the grand old age of 21... well okay, 45...  I have been to lots of meetings and am considerably less enthusiastic!)

However, my experience of meetings, my experience of people and my experience of church has led me to the conclusion that it isn't what gifts you've been given that matters, it's what you do with them.  The meeting I attended earlier today caused me to marvel at the combination of great gifts from God together with a commitment to serving Him.  Wonderful!

A meeting I attended recently (in a different venue) was very different and caused me to reflect less cheerfully on the combination of great gifts and talents together with a lack of respect for God's ways.  Not good!

The prisoner who wants to compile a C.V. may not have much to put in it with which to impress a secular human employer.  The widow who put her couple of coins in the collection plate, however, apparently didn't have much to put in it to impress Jesus, yet she did impress Him.   The important thing in the Christian life isn't how many qualifications and assets we have.  The important thing is how willing we are to give God what we have.

God's far less interested in our ABILITY than He is interested in our AVAILABILITY.


1 Corinthians 1:27 says, "Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful."

Holy Jim; Him Indoors on Total Wipeout.

Top of the Criminal Tree.

We have seven and a half Christmas trees in our home this year, which I admit is kind of ridiculous.  Three of them are little artificial ones in the 3 bedrooms occupied by our 4 kids.  The Big One is in our sitting room and one is in our wee "family room".  The latter is very exciting for me because it's the first real tree I've ever had!  Some of the proceeds from it went to the homeless,which was a bonus.  We have two tiny wee trees as mantlepiece decorations too.  That's seven so far.  The half tree is the one in the picture.  We got it a number of years ago and it is literally half a tree which is designed to be wall mounted.  As you see, we have it between our front door and the storm door.

I love Christmas trees.... and trees generally, actually. 

There's a phrase that has cropped up from time to time in discussion with prisoners as a prison chaplain and that phrase is "top of the criminal tree".  Prisoners are, like the rest of us, a diverse bunch of people.  Some of them, though by no means all, are "career criminals" - their very identity is as a criminal.  Their ambition has been to be top of the criminal tree.  If it's violence-related, then part of this has been that they have striven to be seen as tougher, harder, scarier, more vicious and brutal than anyone else.  (Sadly, this seems often to have had its origins in "care" where the only way to survive and thrive as a vulnerable child/young teenager was to be tougher than anyone else there.)

Top of the tree.... as I write this I'm glancing at the top of (my first real - did I mention that?  Yippee!) Christmas tree.  The top of our real tree is a long single "stem" whereas the artificial trees all taper more evenly, in a triangle shape.  The top of a Christmas tree, especially a real one, is a lonely spot, when you think about it.

This hasn't afflicted me on previous Christmases but many times this December when I've looked at Christmas trees I've thought a lot about the phrase "top of the criminal tree" and remembered so many conversations I've had with prisoners - including some who're very notorious and whose crimes where heinous - who speak to me about how their ambition was to be top of the criminal tree.  Yet when they got there they looked round and saw that, after all, it wasn't so fab.  It was in fact a lonely place to be.  

Some of these individuals genuinely regret the path they chose.  Some of them want to reinvent themselves as "pro-social", as social workers would say, good guys.  This isn't easy for various reasons, and not just their own temptations and proclivities. Once you've got the reputation for being a hard man it's not easy to persuade people that, actually, you don't want to be that person any more.  You're quite likely to find yourself left alone up there, in a place you no longer want.

Please, this Christmas, if you're the praying kind, would you pray for the toughest, hardest criminals who've got to the to top of the criminal tree in their locale and realised it's not been what they expected - people who want to mend their ways.  Thank you, friends.

And Merry Christmas, y'all!  Thanks for dropping by my blog x

The Digital Story of The Nativity - fab!!

Snow Day at Church.

As I write, Him Indoors is trudging through the snow to tell any brave souls who turn up at church this morning that the services are cancelled.  As well as snow we're having thunder and lightning.  In November!  I wish I'd never seen the film "The Day After Tomorrow"....

A story is in my head today that my dad told me years ago.  There was once a minister in a rural parish who woke to see that there had been heavy snow.  He at first assumed that no one would come but then decided (as Him Indoors has) that he should go to the church building just in case.  His manse was next door to the church. 

At the time the service was due to start, he looked out and saw that a solitary tractor was approaching driven by a local farmer.

"Well Jock", the minister said, "since it's just you and me, I think we'll cancel the service today".

"Oh now then, meenister, if I went out to feed the cattle and only one turned up I'd still hae to feed it".

The minister felt duly chastened and climbed into the pulpit and went ahead with the service - hymns, sermon, everything.  At the end of the service, at the door, he said, "Was that all right for you, Jock?".

"Jings, meenister, if just one cow turned up I would hae to feed it but I wouldnae gie it the whale lot"!

Prisoners' Week 2010 - sixth post.

One of the first prisoners I got to know - let's call him Fred - was a committed (no pun intended) Christian who was very strong in his faith indeed.  He had become a Christian after his crime was committed but some years before coming into prison.  This meant that he had had the opportunity to become well established in a church. 

When he went to prison, the people in his church were supportive of his wife and also of him.  He was visited, and prayed for, and written to.  Some days he would get ten pieces of mail - very unusual, to put it mildly - and the letters would be from people in his church.

Because he was one of the first prisoners I got to know I didn't at that stage realise just how unusual he was.  Most prisoners who are Christians have only come to faith since coming into prison.  Most prisoners who are Christians don't have a church back home praying for them and loving and supporting them and their family.

I had read the book of Acts in the Bible many times in my life before becoming a prison chaplain, and meeting Fred, but I had never really noticed Acts 12:5 until then. 

"So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him".

Peter, the gung-ho hothead of Jesus's disciples, that we love, who was devoted to Jesus and yet so human and flawed, prone to doubt and panic, once promised Jesus that he was ready to go to jail for Jesus or even to die for him.  In the end he got the chance to do both, but not before he had panicked and denied three times even knowing Jesus at all.  He was imprisoned for preaching about the risen Christ - but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.  And Peter came out of prison unscathed, earlier than expected and with his faith intact.  He had somewhere to go when he came out of prison, too, after Rhoda got over the shock, anyway.

In Prisoners' Week, the Church is encouraged to remember about, and pray for, all prisoners (as well as the victims of crime and staff).  In this post I just want to add, though, that if you're a Christian, it is important that you remember that in prisons all across the country will be Christian prisoners who are your brothers and sisters in Christ.  Many of them will be very new in their faith, with lots and lots to learn and very possibly much of the baggage and mess of their past still to face up to and deal with.  They are not like Fred with a church back home to pray for them and to go to when they get out.  They need your prayers!

Prisoners' Week 2010 - fifth post.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said: "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them!  But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.  And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" 

Isn't that an interesting quote?

As a prison chaplain, I see one of my functions as to tell Churchworld about Prisonworld.  Quite often I get opportunities, which I value, to speak to church groups about my work.  And I have this blog - albeit unofficially and semi-anonymously. 

 I do these things because I am aware that by definition, prisoners are out-of-sight-out-of-mind, as I said earlier this week, and so it is hard for Christians to remember about them.  Prisoners' Week serves an important purpose therefore.  I am not blaming anyone.  This time four years ago I had given very little thought in my life to prisons or prisoners at all!

However, reflecting on Solzhenitsyn's quote, I'm wondering if something else is happening too.

It's not just that we forget about prisoners.  We perhaps choose to forget about them.  Not consciously.  Not on purpose.  But in some mysterious way for our own welfare we do, perhaps.

It is well known that people in this country will give far more generously and willingly to animal welfare charities than to mental health charities.  The mental health charities are also the poor relations to the physical health charities.  One reason for this may be that animals are not just cute and fluffy but are "other" or "them".  People who have cancer or blindness or deafness or have muscular dystrophy are to those of us who don't, also "other" or "them". 

Mental health is a different thing, though.   There are so many sliding scales. and most of us, deep down, would have to admit that we're on the scale in one direction or another.  We're a little paranoid, or we're a little depressed, or we're a little prone to hysteria, or whatever.  At least, we'd have to admit it if we thought about it.  But by not thinking about it, we're protected from disquiet.  This is a factor, perhaps, in our unwillingness to think much about mental health charities when it comes to allocating our giving.

Prisons can be conveniently compartmentalised, in a literal physical way, as separate from the rest of society.  By doing so, we're able to feel that offenders are "other" or "them" and we are safely "us".

The reality is, though, that we're not so different from offenders.  There's a sliding scale there too.  Christians know it as sin. 

Coffee & Custody.

It was my privilege a few days ago to attend a coffee morning for Prisoners Week.  It wasn't "in aid" of Prisoners Week in a money-raising sense.  In fact it was a free coffee morning.  It was for Prisoners Week though and was held in a prison.  The prison is a low security one, or this wouldn't have happened of course, but members of local churches (and an imam from the mosque) were invited in to the prison to have coffee with the prisoners.  The coffee and cakes were served by the chaplains and some of the prisoners.  The rest of the prisoners who came were served along with the public.

Some prisoners' artwork was on display and one of the prisoners read a poem he had written.  Also on display was some photos of some of the charity efforts that prisoners had been involved in.

What was lovely about the occasion was that, without any orchestration, the tables all filled up with a mixture of prisoners and public who were able to chat in a relaxed way.

The purpose of Prisoners Week is to remind folk in the churches to care about and pray for prisoners, and the chaplains who organised the event were hoping that this would help with that aim.  Hopefully the attendees would go back to their churches and talk about the event.  It was also hoped that the prisoners would have the opportunity to learn that there are people out there who care about them enough to give up a Saturday morning to travel to the prison to come in and chat to people they don't know, and that they - the prisoners - would sense that they were loved.  Interestingly, a couple of the prisoners commented that they thought it was a great occasion and it was good to be able to show people that prisoners can be "nice" and "normal".

The prison where the coffee morning was held is for people at the end of their sentences and one of the privileges is that the guys can wear their own clothes.  Because of this, a few of the public in attendance whispered to me (being a woman it was clear I was not a prisoner) "How do you know who's a prisoner and who's a member of the public?"

I loved that question.  "Exactly!" and "Yussssss!", I thought.

Mortification.

Yesterday I was blogging about the Scottish Prisoners Week theme of "More Than A Number".

It's not just the actual prisoner number that contributes to the "just-a-number-ness" of prison. There is obviously much more than that involved. When a prisoner begins his sentence, his first hours in the jail will see him "dehumanised" by the handing over of his own clothes and the donning of prison issue clothes.

In many prisons in Scotland the colour of your shirt will show which hall you have been assigned to (leading amongst other things to sex offenders being obvious to other prisoners, amongst whom they are very unpopular).

The dehumanising process of coming into prison - the "dog boxes" in the prison transport vans and the "dog boxes" in the prison reception, the allocation of a number and the change into prison uniform - known as "mortification" - is not accidental. It is deliberate and is to give offenders very firmly the message, "Right, then, sonny. You might have been a big hot-shot on the outside, top of your criminal tree. But in here you're just a number. You're the same as the rest of them. The sooner you buckle down and accept this new reality the better you will get on".

There is a certain apparent and appealing logic to this thinking, but in my humble opinion it's deeply flawed.

For every offender who needs to get this message, who's got too big for his criminal boots, I think there must be twenty others who already think they're nothing. (I've plucked the number twenty from the air - it might be a lot more). The point is that, however many offenders come in cocky and arrogant and needing humbled, many times more than that come into prison with a pick and mix of: mental health issues, addiction issues, past childhood abuse/neglect/trauma, illiteracy, social inadequacy, learning difficulties, bereavement issues and/or guilt. Far from needing mortification and dehumanisation, what they need is healing, restoration, hope, encouragement, education, healthcare, addictions support, and (to be radical) love .

Even those offenders who do need taken down a peg are unlikely to be transformed for the better by the mortification process. It will make the hard man harder - he will be angrier with the authorities by the end of it than he was at the start, and determine that he will not let the system break him (as he sees it).

More Than A Number is a great theme for Prisoners Week. It would make a great motto for all our social interaction actually.

I posted the following a few weeks ago but feel that it fits this post too and it's so well worth repeating I'm half-thinking of printing it off and framing it!

By Judge Dennis Challeen:

We want them to have self-worth
So we destroy their self-worth

We want them to be responsible
So we take away all responsibility

We want them to be positive and constructive
So we degrade them and make them useless

We want them to be trustworthy
So we put them where there is no trust

We want them to be non-violent
So we put them where violence is all around them

We want them to be kind and loving people
So we subject them to hatred and cruelty

We want them to quit being the tough guy
So we put them where the tough guy is respected

We want them to quit hanging around losers
So we put all the losers under one roof

We want them to quit exploiting us
So we put them where they exploit each other

We want them to take control of their lives, own problems and quit being a parasite...
So we make them totally dependant on us.

More Than A Number.

This week is Prisoners' Week (see yesterday's post). In Scotland we have as our theme this year "More Than A Number". I think it's one of the best themes in years. It's surely obvious that people are more than a number, and yet I do think we need to remind ourselves frequently lest we miss the obvious.

We all have numbers these days. I must be known to "The Authorities" by many different numbers, including my passport number, my national insurance number, my driving licence number (and the number of points on it, ahem), my bank account number, my patient number, my Tesco number, my PIN numbers, my blood donor number, my work ID number, and so on and so on. I don't mind this really as it's an efficient way to run administrative systems.

However, in Prisonworld, the numbering system makes me a little uneasy. It's not that I think it's wrong or should be abolished. I can see it's administratively essential. But the unfortunate side-effect seems to me to be dehumanising psychologically.

The number you are given as a prisoner stays with you for the rest of your life - if you get another prison sentence you will be given the same number. This means that, as the cartoon suggests, the smaller the number a prisoner has the longer ago he first entered the system, although he may have been out of prison for years and years in between sentences.

Recently a prisoner returned to our establishment who was with us a year or more ago. When I looked at the list of "transfers in" and saw his surname, which is quite a common one, I realised that I knew it was him by his number. I don't particularly have a head for numbers (I've been known to forget my PIN number at the bank) so I was surprised to recognise a prisoner in this way.

Some prisoners don't seem to mind their number at all. I think it's sad that they've become so institutionalised that it is their "normal". Some even get their prisoner number tattooed on their body - occasionally with a barcode design!

Me? I don't want to lose my discomfort with the prisoner number. I'm not opposed to it. As I said, we've all got lots of numbers these days in lots of administrative systems. But in Prisonworld it is such a symbol of the one-size-fits-all dehumanising system that I will be quite content if I go through the rest of my time as a prison chaplain feeling slightly awkward every single time I have to ask, every day, "What's your number?"

Prisoners Week 2010

(Cartoon courtesy of Jon Birch's "The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus".)

There are National Days and International Days and Special Weeks and Months and The Year of The Whatever all the time.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Prostate Cancer Awareness Month do a good job, for example. I was pretty scathing when I learned that Friday was World Toilet Day until I read what it said on the website, when I had a change of heart. There are some thought-provoking statistics there.

Today is the start of Prisoners Week.

Prisoners' Week isn't really for prisoners. When you're in prison, every week is prisoners' week. Prisoners' Week is designed to remind people, especially in Churchworld, of prisons and prisoners who are otherwise out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind. The Bible tells Christians that they must remember those in prison as if they were in prison themselves but, with the best will in the world, they are difficult to remember.
Society sends them to prison to get them out of the road and this is so successful that it is easy to forget about prisoners, although I always say to church groups that when they see the Reliance Van (our company car!) that can serve as a reminder to us to pray. Inside those vans will probably be prisoners - each in one of the "dog boxes" which are truly horrible.

The purpose of this post (you thought I'd never get there, eh?) is to encourage you to pray for prisoners this week. Sometimes that idea irks people and they say, understandably, "But what about the victims, AnneDroid?" What about them? It's not an either/or. It's not an either/or in the sense that we can and should pray for both prisoners AND victims. We don't have to choose! But also, it's not an either/or in the sense that sorting out who is a prisoner and who is a victim isn't always as simplistic as you might think. I would guess that most prisoners are also victims in some way or another - often back in childhood through abuse or neglect, but also in adulthood too.

If you would like to pray for prisoners, you can pray for them any time :)

But if you'd like to make a special effort to pray for prisoners in Prisoners' Week that would be totally fab.

Here is the Prisoners' Week prayer from the website:

Lord, you offer freedom to all people.
We pray for those who are captives in prison
and those who are affected by or involved in their imprisonment.
Break the bonds of fear and isolation that exist.
Support with your love: prisoners, their families and friends,
prison staff and all who care.
Heal those who have been wounded by the activities of others,
especially the victims of crime.
Help us to forgive one another, to act justly, to love mercy,
and walk humbly together with Christ
in his strength and in his spirit now and every day.
Amen.

(Of course you can use your own words instead if you like...).

The AMAZING story of Jacob de Shazer.

We've been very blessed at our church over the last year by the presence of "Proby The Second", our lovely probationer Paul, who - sadly for us but not for his future congregation - is about to leave us for pastures new, with his lovely wife and family.

Anyway I was so impressed with the story he told us on Sunday as part of our Service of Remembrance for those lost in warfare, that I asked if I could re-tell it here.

It was about Jacob de Shazer who I confess I'd never heard of. He was a bomber, who as part of America's retaliation against the Japanese for Pearl Harbour, set off to bomb the Japanese. He describes how he was full of bitterness in his heart and that, as far as he was concerned, the more Japanese he killed the better. However, he ran out of fuel and had to parachute - into the hands of the Japanese who held him as a prisoner of war, in very grim conditions indeed.

After two years' harsh imprisonment, he came into possession of a Bible and started to read it. He was so affected that he became a Christian. Romans 10:9 which says "If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" impressed him particularly and he never looked back, knowing from then on that God was real and "we can't hide a thing from him" and then "the hatred went out of my heart". All his hatred for the Japanese vanished - an act of God without doubt.

After Japan surrendered and the war was over, he was flown back to America. He finished college then went back to Japan in 1948 as a missionary. Amazing!

Lots of Japanese people became Christians, partly through the ministry of Jacob de Shazer, whose return to Japan astonished them in the circumstances.

Undoubtedly the most remarkable and significant convert, Mitsuo Fuchida, who read a tract about Jacob de Shazer's experience and then went to the Bible and became a Christian (and a friend of De Shazer), had been the leader of the attack on Pearl Harbour.

That Fuchida and De Shazer should become friends after their past mutual hatred is amazing, isn't it?

By contrast it's a very little thing, and you may wonder at my mentioning it here, but for me this is a powerful illustration of something also very marvellous that I've seen recently. Last week it was my great privilege to be speaking at a meeting to raise awareness of Prisonworld amongst some church people. The previous night the previous occupant of the position of Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons in Scotland, and a Prison Governor had been speaking. The day I spoke, I was preceded by a Prison Officer who gave a virtual tour (through powerpoint) of a Scottish maximum security jail. This officer happens to be a committed Christian. Between his talk and mine the audience heard the remarkable testimony of a former prisoner, whom I count it an honour to call a friend. Then I did a muddly kind of summing-up. What I appreciated more than anyone in the room, probably, was what a special thing it was for the prison officer and the (former) prisoner to be sharing the platform as brothers in Christ, as equals.

This link
will allow you the opportunity to hear Jacob de Shazer tell his own story, by the way. Not long, but well worth listening to.

Two minutes silence - 1919 in London and 2010 in a Scottish jail

"The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect.
The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition.
Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of 'attention'. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped her eyes, and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still ... The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain ... And the spirit of memory brooded over it all." From the Manchester Guardian, 12th November 1919.

At a Remembrance Service today, it was my privilege to read that amazing newspaper excerpt along with two poems. The poems were Dulce et Decorum Est from WWI, by Wilfred Owen whose parents received the news of his death so near the end of the war just about the time that the Armistice was declared and This Place Called War by Joanna Carman about her brother going off to Afhganistan, which he survived only to be killed in Iraq at a later date. I also read a bit of Psalm 139 which I used so often at bedsides when I was a chaplain in the hospice movement but which seemed as appropriate here.

I always find Remembrance Services very moving and I'm so glad that 91 years after the first silence was observed, we are still doing it, and yet - as we all are - I'm obviously very grieved that the first world war did not after all turn out to be the "war to end all wars".

Today was only my second experience of taking part in a Service of Remembrance within a prison and both times I have found it to be moving in another way also. Prisonworld is, no doubt of necessity in some ways, a very them-and-us culture. Inevitably, the "screws" and the "cons" end up viewing each other (in practice rather than literally) almost as alien species, just as a result of the way the system operates. Even if you've never been in a prison, if you've watched the BBC series Porridge you'll know what I mean! Inevitably there are other camps too - senior management, the social work department, etc, working together but separate somehow. (I often think that chaplains are like Switzerland, "neutrals" in the midst - not because we're better people or anything, just that our job is different).

The Remembrance Service in prison is a very unusual and special occasion because we meet simply as human beings. There are ex-forces people among both the prisoners and staff, and both prisoners and staff may have relatives past and present who have fought or are fighting in war. All of us watch the news and all of us see, too often, the sad images of young people returning home from Afghanistan in a coffin.

There is something poignant and powerful about a prison Remembrance Service and I feel privileged to have been there today.

Prisoners - the right to vote?

This newspaper article, like many others in the press this week deals with the recent news that the British government are going to have to face up to the European Court of Human Rights' decision that UK prisoners should be allowed to vote.

I am really delighted that UK prisoners are to be given the vote. In reality, I think, not all that many prisoners will want to exercise that right, and, even if they did, they aren't such a huge percentage of the population that the outcome of any election would be really affected.

However:

(1) Britain has traditionally smugly seen itself as being one of the "good guys" in terms of human rights but must walk the walk as well as talking the talk. If China (see the photo above) can be giving prisoners the right to vote, who are we to cast aspersions on their human rights record whilst being so proud of our own?

(2) What we in society want our prisoners to gain whilst in custody is a sense of responsibility. Yet what prison actually does is remove all responsibility from offenders, taking away almost all their power to decide anything, institutionalising them, and in fact infantilising them. Allowing and encouraging prisoners to vote would help a little to mitigate against this negative process, allowing them some autonomy and enabling them to feel like stakeholders in the society we want them to contribute to rather than damaging.

What has made me sad this week, though, is the tone of much of the "red top" tabloid coverage of this in the media, and also the government itself's presentation of the thing. It is being presented as a Bad Thing that we are having to give in, at last, very reluctantly, to this pressure when really we would much rather not. I find that sad and disturbing. (Mind you, and I'll leave my rant on this for another day) much of the media coverage on offenders upsets me, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Please Give Blood.

This is my brother, his wife and their little boys, the youngest of whom is the inspiration for the plea to give blood.

International Prison Chaplains Association group photo 2010

This photo was taken by Helmut Munikel and shows the group of delegates attending the International Prison Chaplains Association conference in Stockholm. The place we are standing in the photo is the City Hall in Stockholm, which is where the Nobel prizes are awarded each year.

By the way, I'm the one in the white top in the middle of the group who is looking the wrong way. Sums me up actually - I've always been "easily distracted". Many people are familiar with the Myers Briggs personality theory. I'm quite a fan of it actually. The first two times I did it were ten years apart and both times I came out as ENFP, which if you don't know Myers Briggs will mean nothing to you. Anyway, some wag has written a different prayer for each of the different sixteen personality groups and the prayer for the ENFP category is: "Dear Lord, ...oh look there's a bird...". This resonates with me, I have to confess and so I think it's quite appropriate that I should be looking the wrong way in the photo!

The conference was such a blessing to attend. I'm so grateful for the privilege of being able to go and still processing the experience in my mind. Above all the fellowship of more than 300 fellow chaplains from 69 countries was such an encouragement to me. At the end we had to stand around the meeting hall - all of us - holding hands for the final benediction. We sang "You raise me up" together, literally raising our arms whilst still holding hands at each chorus. Normally such an occurrence would seem to this worldly, hardened, heavy-rock-loving cynic to be a total cheese-fest but on this occasion I was moved to tears. I was holding hands on my right with a Northern Irish prison chaplain and on my left with Patriarch Bartholomew in full regalia. Normally, I work either alone or in a team of two (my Roman Catholic colleague is part time) and so it was incredibly encouraging and uplifting to be reminded that I'm part of a worldwide body of prison chaplains, only a very few of whom were at the conference of course, who are my brothers and sisters in Christ with the same passion as I have to see prisoners meet God and share my testimony (and that of the writer of the hymn "And can it be"): "My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee".

Isn't this awesome?

Our good friend Nathan, who is a very talented guy, made this film. I think it is amazing. His sister Sarah makes her debut as the star - quite a talented actress it turns out. Enjoy.

International Prison Chaplains Association conference, Stockholm 2010, part two. Conference Declaration.

Conference Declaration
DECLARATION OF THE 6th WORLDWIDE CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL PRISON CHAPLAINS’ ASSOCIATION

August 20-25, 2010
Clarion Hotel, Stockholm
Sweden

The 6TH International Prison Chaplains’ Association Worldwide Conference held at the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden from 20-25 August 2010, attended by 320 participants from 69 countries representing all regions in the world, with the theme ”Forgotten People”

Bearing in mind the wonderful biblical stories that reveal the unconditional love of God and His Mercy and Compassion and who fulfils His promises;

Considering that the 25th year of IPCA is a time of thanksgiving and gratefulness for the blessings that it receives, it is challenged to proclaim justice that heals and restoration to the prisoners, to the victims and to the community.

Recalling the various international and national standards on the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty and in particular the laws that recognize the right to life, the dignity of the human person and the laws affecting the youth.

Coming together as one community under the guidance of the spirit committed to uniting, encouraging and equipping a global network of prison chaplains; and pursuing the creation of a better environment for those affected by crime, having deepened our solidarity and having been awakened to a more creative way of doing prison ministry;

Being deeply concerned with the increasing urgency of the need to revitalize our prison ministry programs to respond in pro-active ways to the following issues and concerns:

– THE PATHETIC SITUATIONS IN THE PRISONS IN MANY COUNTRIES
– THE DESPERATE AND RETRIBUTIVE SYSTEM OF OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS
– THE CONDITION OF THE CHILDREN IN CONFLICT WITH THE LAW
– THE DEATH PENALTY ISSUE
– THE DEARTH OF PROGRAMS FOR HEALING AND RESTORATION

Observing the common issues and concerns presented during the conference, we especially take note of the following violations of the rights of the persons deprived of liberty in many countries:

– CONGESTION, POOR HYGIENE, VENTILATION AND FOOD IN PRISONS
– NON-SEPARATION OF YOUTH OFFENDERS FROM ADULT OFFENDERS.
– HARSH DISCIPLINE, PUNISHMENT AND TORTURE
– PROLIFERATION OF DRUGS AND OTHER SUBSTANCE ABUSE.
– PROSTITUTION IN PRISONS AND SEXUAL ABUSE
– LACK OF ACCESS TO A GOOD DEFENSE OF THE CASES
– CORRUPTION IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM NOT TO MENTION THE BIASES AND DISCRIMINATION AGAINST VULNERABLE SECTORS OF SOCIETY
– LONG SENTENCES AND LIFE SENTENCES
– EXECUTIONS AND THE DEATH PENALTY
– IMPACT ON THEIR FAMILIES
– INCREASING NUMBER OF FOREIGN PRISONERS DUE TO DRUG TRAFFICKING AND LARGE SCALE MIGRATION TRENDS.

Believing that the problems of the prison situation are far more serious now than at any other time in the long history of our involvement in prison ministry.

Feeling an inescapable responsibility to bring to a higher form of struggle the need for a renewed solidarity among all those working towards a more humane treatment of prisoners and building an environment where conversion and reconciliation can happen.

We, the 320 Prison Chaplains and Prison Workers:

• CALL UPON the government of each country to give high priority in improving prison environments and ensure the observance of the UN Standards, Principles, Covenants and Recommendations on the Treatment of Prisoners, the “Forgotten People”;

• CALL UPON all churches and other agencies, to take effective steps to respond to the needs of those affected by crime.

• CALL UPON the MEDIA to report accurately and truthfully news on criminality and avoid sensationalism.

• URGE NGOs and Government agencies who are involved in the care of the forgotten people to constantly meet for networking and strong collaboration.

• RE-ITERATE our plea to our church leaders to sincerely address the emerging concerns of the forgotten people, especially in assigning ministers as prison chaplains and in setting up structures that will pull together resources of the community in their service.

• REALIZE THE URGENT NEED to re-assess and re-formulate plans of action and programs reflected in our Declarations.

• REAFFIRM our option for Life and we appeal to leaders of government with laws on death penalty for a stay of execution and to promote the culture of life.

• URGE the leaders of all nations to seriously consider the question of the death penalty and to make a sincere effort to abolish it.

• CALL on all sectors that value life and have a high regard for it, to join efforts, to increase public awareness on the evils of the death penalty and to constantly pressure our governments to denounce cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment that diminishes the person.

As we go back and return to our prison mission areas we bring with us new sources of energy born out of our own experiences of being loved by God.

Equipped with this strength and refreshed by the interaction with co-workers, we are now more confident to be witnesses of God’s Unconditional Love to all, especially the FORGOTTEN PEOPLE - THE PRISONERS.

On the day that increased recidivism rates are announced...

By Judge Dennis Challeen

We want them to have self-worth
So we destroy their self-worth

We want them to be responsible
So we take away all responsibility

We want them to be positive and constructive
So we degrade them and make them useless

We want them to be trustworthy
So we put them where there is no trust

We want them to be non-violent
So we put them where violence is all around them

We want them to be kind and loving people
So we subject them to hatred and cruelty

We want them to quit being the tough guy
So we put them where the tough guy is respected

We want them to quit hanging around losers
So we put all the losers under one roof

We want them to quit exploiting us
So we put them where they exploit each other

We want them to take control of their lives, own problems and quit being a parasite...
So we make them totally dependant on us

I heard this quote, from an American judge, at the conclusion of a very interesting program, "Think Tank", on Radio Scotland today. If you've got a spare half hour, and you can do it within the week before it's gone, I do recommend that you listen - click here. I've already listened to it twice today as it is along similar lines to some of the debates I heard at the IPCA conference in Stockholm, which I'm still processing in my little brain and will be blogging about soon.

International Prison Chaplains Association conference, Stockholm.

Long time no blog!

Sometimes it´s quite hard to blog about prison chaplaincy - there is so much that is very interesting indeed but can´t really be said publicly! However I am currently somewhere so cool I´ve got to share it.

From 20 to 25 August it is the International Prison Chaplains Association conference in Stockholm and I am incredibly privileged to be here. It is particularly special as it is the organisation´s 25th anniversary. We arrived in time for tea last night and our first session was great to be part of. Quite often prison chaplains can feel quite isolated in their work, especially in smaller jails where there isn´t a big team. So it was cool to be with prison chaplains from Oceania, Asia, Africa, North, South and Central America as well as Europe. (I am the only chaplain from Scotland). Singing Amazing Grace with two or three hundred other prison chaplains is an experience I wish I could bottle to produce in the winter on a fed-up day.

There was a difference in price of 100 euros to get a single room so of course I opted to share. I was quite nervous about who I would be "twoed up with", as the prisoners say, but have been reflecting on how much more anxious must prisoners often be when they are made to share a cell with someone who may be dangerous/volatile/up to no good in some way. My Hungarian "cell-mate" seems lovely by the way.

Last night at tea I sat with a Canadian chaplain, two Cubans, two Africans and an Englishman; this morning at breakfast I sat with a Catholic chaplain from New Zealand and a French Canadian chaplain from Quebec. This afternoon I will be attending workshops - I´ve chosen one by the UK´s own Baaroness Vivien Stern and also one by Bruno van der Maat of Peru.

Corrieyairack Challenge.

I have a wee album of photos (click on the photo of Him Indoors to see the rest) of some of those who did the Corrieyairack Challenge. It was a great experience. The money raised goes to an outdoor centre called Badaguish which caters for people with disabilities/special needs.

Ben Vrackie

Blue-Eyed Boy, Flora the dog and I climbed Ben Vrackie today, beginning at Moulin, and adding a loop through Killiecrankie on the way home to make it 10 miles. Depressingly, I am exhausted and my feet are sore. The reason this is depressing is that a week today I have a 17 mile sponsored hike for the Corrieyairick Challenge, the first half of which is all uphill. Anyone have a quad bike I could borrow? Click on this photo and hopefully you'll see the photos - we have a really beautiful country.

Carn Aosda and The Cairnwell.

I took three of our kids up Scotland's two easiest Munros on Saturday. The reason they're easiest is that although they are the height of Munros, the car park is already quite high. Blue Eyed Boy renamed Carn Aosda as Ben Asda so of course it made sense to rename The Cairnwell as Ben Tesco. The mountains themselves bear all the scars of their winter use as a ski resort so aren't very pretty in the summer, but the views of surrounding hills and mountains are great. It was very windy indeed, and there was a fair amount of whining on the way up, particularly from Penultimate Child and Youngest Child but it was all forgotten of course on the way down. Flora the dog had a fab time as usual. If you click on the picture on the right you'll see the wee album of photies.

Loch Turret and Ben Chonzie

On Thursday I did another walk, alongside Loch Turret and then up Ben Chonzie (my second ever Munro). Just Flora and me, although on the top of Ben Chonzie I met two people I'd spoken to on Schiehallion last Saturday! It was a beautiful day really. Click on the picture here and (hopefully) you'll see the album of photos. And I do have a perfectly reasonable explanation for having a miniature of whisky with me - it's to do with my next-door-neighbour actually.

Schiehallion

Last Saturday I climbed my first Munro, Schiehallion. Here are the photos (click on this one and you should access the album). It was a beautiful day, and were I fitter, it would have been perfect. Instead it was a struggle, but it left me feeling nicely virtuous! We really have a beautiful country here in Scotland. Flora was my companion for the journey. The last part of Schiehallion is a scramble across boulders. I hadn't realised that and wondered what I would do if the dog fell and was injured, seeing as I can barely lift her, never mind carry her down a mountain. However, I think her low centre of gravity and four legs make her as nimble as a mountain goat and she was fine.