For the last several years, Healing Communities PA partnered with the Metropolitan Christian Council of Philadelphia on the Restorative Cities Initiative™️, a grassroots “porch front to city hall” model of bringing restorative practices to every part of community life, particularly in BIPOC [...]Read More
Restoring Community Belonging
Those Leaving Prison and Those In Churches Need Each Other To HealPrison reentry efforts can too often—unintentionally—keep men and women returning from prison isolated from the rest of their communities. With specialized reentry nonprofits, paid staff, transitional housing, and other important [...]Read More
Justice Through Healing
Equal Justice USA today is a much different organization than it was more than 20 years ago at our founding. Then we were focused sharply on ending the death penalty through state campaigns, and we’ve succeeded on that front. As important as those wins are, what we learned from those campaigns [...]Read More
Welcoming a bit of the garden of Eden into the reentry process
by Stephanie Vander Lugt“Its time to play… Guess. That. Vegetable!” The room erupted into game-show worthy applause as cruciferous and leafy wonders passed from table to table. Hushed tones ensued. Is it a beet? A melon? A kind of celery? Each team efforted to correctly identify the most vegetables [...]Read More
How our Church got Involved in Mass Incarceration
by Joe MarcucciOur entry to the dizzying world of Mass Incarceration began with the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, and the book Rethinking Incarceration by Dominique Gilliard. We were determined to move the marker for what our church was engaged with. When the initial registration for our [...]Read More
As a product of America’s school to prison pipeline, I…
by Michael SimmonsCW: This post includes stories about suicidal ideation.I remember the first time I wanted to kill myself. It was the day of what was supposed to be a fun game of football between two teams of freshman high school students. During the game, a play was called in the huddle, and our [...]Read More
Locked in Solidarity 2023: Addressing Mental Health and Trauma from Juveniles through Reentry
Navigate this webpage:Introduction to LIS 2023It’s that time of year again! Locked in Solidarity, CCDA’s awareness & action week on mass incarceration, is February 5-13, 2023. Mark your calendars and rally your community for this important annual focus. We were able to gather [...]Read More
LIS 2022 Recap
Participant HighlightsLIS FriendsLIS Friends is an informal band of CCDA leaders & partners from cities across the United States who share a common passion for mass incarceration, and who seek company, wisdom and practical assistance in local engagement and collective, national response. We [...]Read More