Quaker Witness at the State Capitol

An article by Tom Ewell from Western Friend, June 2010 A room full of fifty Friends is gathered in the Olympia Friends Meetinghouse listening to a state legislator explain the complexities of offering prison reform measures to the Washington State legislature. Friends from various parts of the state have gathered for the second annual Quaker Lobby Day, an opportunity for Washington Friends to hear about the various challenges to the state prison system and how we might use legislation to address the needs. After worship, speakers, and a briefing on how to conduct a good lobby visit, the Friends fan out over the state capital to meet their legislators and their staff face-to-face and offer a Friends’ perspective on prison reform, peace and economic issues, and environmental concerns.

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Review of the book Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System

Our criminal justice system fails to promote rehabilitation, healing, and reconciliation. Does it need as radical a paradigm shift now as the one over 200 years ago that led to penitentiaries instead of gaels, public hangings, mutilations, deportations and other harsh punishments? Carol Estes reviews the book Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System (Laura Magnani & Harmon L. Wray, 2006, AFSC) at: 
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2313