Progressive Prison Ministries November 2016 Newsletter

Progressive Prison Ministries

 

November 2016 Newsletter

 

White-Collar Ministry I Advocacy I Service

Faith & Dignity for the Days Ahead  

  

The first ministry in the United States created to provide confidential  

support and counseling to individuals, families and organizations with  

white-collar and other nonviolent incarceration issues    

 

Significant Outcomes: Since Jan. 2015, We have Served Over 140 Individuals and Families in 25 States:  

   

Since Jan. 2015, we have served individuals and families in twenty-five states, including:     

Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

We typically communicate with individuals and families before, during and upon reentry from prison in person or by phone, email, Skype, FaceTime, GoToMeeting or, if in a Federal prison, via CorrLinks. Please click image for our information package. 

 

 

Press Release: Jeff Grant Appointed New Interim Executive Director at Family ReEntry

    

The Board of Directors of Family ReEntry has appointed Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, as interim Executive Director of Family ReEntry of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Grant served on Family ReEntry's board of directors since 2009 - his new appointment marks

the first time in the United States that a person formerly incarcerated for a white-collar crime has served as the head of a major re-entry agency.

"It's a tremendous step, and a bold decision on the Board's part," Grant said. "This is a transformative period for Family ReEntry. I owe them my fresh start, so of course I said yes when they offered me the position." 

Please click image to press release. 

Guest Blog: From Collared to White Collar, by Monsignor Joseph Ciccone 

    

"The need for criminal justice reform and even religious reform on every level is long overdue. We need only turn on the nightly news to see the great divide between police, clergy and community. Not upper middle class communities, but communities of color, the inequity and mistreatment of women, Latinos, LGBTQ, those with special needs, and all other minorities being "not" represented in the Criminal Justice System or being treated more harshly within the walls of our overcrowded and differential correctional institutions, or being left out or denied access to practices of faith, worship, and liturgy."  Please click image to read Fr. Joe's guest blog. 

 

News: Family ReEntry Behavioral Health Intensive Outpatient Program in Bridgeport & New Haven, CT

    

We would appreciate your referrals! Our best-practices Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) is available in Bridgeport and New Haven. The program is 12 weeks, 3 days per week, 3 hours per day.  Clients come to Family ReEntry for an intake and full assessment. Assistance with enrollment will be provided to clients eligible for Medicaid (HUSKY). Licensed clinicians will determine the most appropriate level of care and treatment for each client - a tailored approach is based on the RNR principles of risk, needs, and responsivity. Please click image for details. 

 

News: Our White-Collar/Nonviolent 

Online Support Group celebrates its twenty-sixth weekly meeting!     

If you have been convicted of a white-collar or nonviolent crime and have served your sentence, please consider joining our confidential online white-collar/ nonviolent support group [As this support group is being run by clergy as part of a program of pastoral counseling, we consider it to be confidential and privileged]. We hold our weekly group meetings on Tuesdays, 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6pm Mountain, 5 pm Pacific. Click image for details.

 

News: Michelle Alexander, Renowned Legal Scholar & Author of The New Jim Crow, Joins Union Seminary in NYC!

Congratulations to Michelle & to our Alma Mater! Click image for information about this important news.

Guest Blog: Meeting Alger Hiss:

Reflections by a 

White-Collar Criminal  

by Jean Valjean, 24601 - 

Guest Blogger

   

"...Thousands of us who have made a mistake recognize the extraordinarily high price for committing a felony--

the sentence not spelled out at sentencing so to speak. The price we pay goes way beyond incarceration and humiliation.  We lose our place in society, our professional careers, friends and sometimes our families. We live our lives with the  constant reminder of our mistakes.  Society is not forgiving or felony friendly..." Click image to read article. 

News: P.R.I.D.E. Entrepreneurial 

Program in Connecticut:

People Reentering Into 

Doing Entrepreneurship

    

A course filled with information on how to go into business. It is exclusively for inmates, released inmates & people with a criminal background.  It covers all areas such as Banking, Law, Insurance, Accounting, Marketing , Sales, Life Lessons, Business Plan, Positive Mental Attitude & more.  What makes it unique is that it is 60% business data & 40% Life lessons. Click image to article.

 

Interview: Jeff Talked Criminal Justice with Felipe Luciano, WBAI Radio FM 99.5 NYC    

   

Click image to listen to Felipe & Jeff discuss faithful responses to criminal justice issues in America (at 19.00). Jeff & Felipe were classmates at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. 

 

 

Article: Our Ministry Featured in Business Insider 

   

Rachael Levy wrote a powerful article about our ministry, "This is What it's Like When the 1% go to Jail, According to a Couple that Ministers to Their Families." Click image to read article. 

 

Donations: Thank You For Your Support & Generosity!

We are grateful for all donations made to our ministries. Donations can be made by Credit Card/PayPal or by sending your check payable to: "Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc." P.O. Box 1232, Weston, Connecticut 06883.  We are a CT Religious Corp. with 501(c)(3) status - all donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.   

Contact Information:  

If transformation and redemption matter to you, a friend or a family member with a white-collar or nonviolent incarceration issue, please contact us and we will promptly send you an information package by mail, email or via Dropbox. The darkest days of a person's life can be a time of renewal and hope.

Blessings, כן, מאוד

Jeff & Lynn 

  

Prisonist.org: Progressive Prison Project/Innocent Spouse & Children Project are missions of Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc.  

  

Mailing Address: 

P.O. Box 1232 

Weston, Connecticut 06883 

(o) 203-769-1096

Rev. Deacon Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Director 

jgrant@prisonist.org

(m) 203-339-5887

 Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram 

 

Lynn Springer, Founding Advocate
Innocent Spouses, Children & Families

lspringer@prisonist.org 

(m) 203-536-5508

Rev. Monsignor Joseph Ciccone, Ed D, M Div
Supervising Minister
stjosephmissionchurch@gmail.com
(201) 982-2206

Jacqueline Polverari, MBA, MSW, Advocate
Women's Incarceration Issues
jpolverari@prisonist.org
(203) 671-5139

George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats 

gbresnan@prisonist.org 

(m) 203-609-5088

Jim Gabal, Development 

jgabal@prisonist.org 

(m) 203-858-2865

Babz Rawls Ivy, Media Contact 

mediababz@gmail.com 

(m) 203-645-9278

Faith & Dignity for the Days Ahead

From Collared to White Collar, by Monsignor Joseph Ciccone - Guest Blogger

Prisonist.org: Faith & Dignity 
for the Days Ahead
Blogs, Guest Blogs & News

From Collared to White Collar

by Monsignor Joseph Ciccone 

- Guest Blogger

This past Sunday, was the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time in the Christian Calendar. I celebrated Mass with my White Roman Clerical Collar on.  However, it was anything but an ordinary time.  

The Mass was the ancient Catholic Rite ordaining one to the Diaconate, a call to serve your fellow humans in the most humbling way.  A call to wash the feet of those in need, those who are broken, who are in the margins, those who have sinned and hope to find forgiveness, redemption, and salvation.  The place was Saint Joseph Mission Church, the newest addition to the United State Old Catholic Church movement.  A part or level of Catholic tradition (there are three; Roman, Old, and Orthodox), that differs only in the doctrine of fallibility of Papal authority.  Meaning, we believe that everyone is capable of making a mistake, even the Pope.

The newest Deacon was my classmate from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, Jeff Grant. The Presiding Bishop Edmund Cass, would lay hands on Jeff, as he lies facedown prostrate upon the cold stone floor in front of the Altar.  I, a Priest now for only over a year, after the having completed 7 years of seminary training and formation, would assist in the miracle happening in a church full of friends, family, and believers.  I would swing the heavy brass Censer with the gothic aroma of frankincense smoke billowing to the heavens over the Altar, the Bishop, and my friend Jeff, who was in deep prayer and I am sure reflection on the ritual that was happening before us all and hoping God is calling him to do something great.

Jeff and I have a great deal in common, we both started

Seminary much later in life. We both had major careers before that, advanced degrees, and reached the pinnacle of success. Both of us focused our life work within the Criminal Justice System, Jeff a prominent Attorney, and myself a beat cop that rose to the top as Sheriff of one of the largest counties in New Jersey.  

Also, we both share another common event, we both made one small mistake in our lives, and because of that mistake found ourselves on the opposite side on the Criminal Justice System.  We are among the nearly 70 million people in America who find themselves sentenced to life as convicted criminals and are forever changed, stigmatized, and often shunned.

Both Jeff and I now, nearly 16 years later, have come to see and recognize the great challenges, problems, and most of all the tremendous inequity that is within the criminal justice, the correctional system and even the system of organized religion. The need for criminal justice reform and even religious reform on every level is long overdue. We need only turn on the nightly news to see the great divide between police, clergy and community. Not upper middle class communities, but communities of color, the inequity and mistreatment of women, Latinos, LGBTQ, those with special needs, and all other minorities being “not” represented in the Criminal Justice System or being treated more harshly within the walls of our overcrowded and differential correctional institutions, or being left out or denied access to practices of faith, worship, and liturgy.

I do believe that most cops and clergy go to work every day, trying to make the world better. But I also believe that reform, more education, and sensitivity training are long overdue.  I also believe, that we as a society need to recognize the need for reform of ourselves, to be better than we are, to be more forgiving, more understanding, and more than we can even expect from ourselves.  

The United States Old Catholic Church and the Saint Joseph Mission is a call to share the Gospel with ALL people, to affirm and celebrate our diversity and embrace our difference, and most of all to welcome and forgive those who have fallen, have made a mistake, or who are broken.  Our hope, prayer and goal is to not only forgive, but to empower, to raise up, and help those who have fallen to stand tall once again!

From this past Sunday in ordinary time, my brother in faith, Rev. Jeff Grant and I will now try to do the extraordinary. 
We have been given a second chance by God to make the Church, government, and even the police better than they are. 

Jeff as a lawyer and me as a cop, were once called to save lives, now we are called to save souls. We are being called to help shed light on the darkness that is so prevalent in the world in the mistreatments and lack of fairness that exists in the Church, Criminal Justice and Correctional System.  We are going to try to show the importance of giving people a second chance, of offering forgiveness and redemption.  In changing that life sentence of stigma and being cast out to a life sentence of service, love, and grace. We are going to try to do the extraordinary.  

Keep us in your prayers we could use all the help we can get - and if you want to join us, just reach out!

Blessings, Fr. Joe
 

Rev. Monsignor Joseph Ciccone, Ed.D., M.Div.
Saint Joseph Mission Church
Email - stjosephmissionchurch@gmail.com
Parish Office -201-754-4GOD
Blessed are the Peacemakers who bring GOD to the People!
Visit us at ~ http://www.saintjosephmissionchurch.org
To learn more about the Old Catholic Church, please visit: https://srocc.org

_____________

Donations

We are grateful for all donations this past year to our Ministries. These donations enable us to grow, reach out and serve this community for which there is far too little understanding, compassion, empathy and accurate information.  Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is a CT Religious Corp. with 501c3 status -

all donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. We hope you will consider making a donation to our appeal this year.  Donations can be made by credit card/PayPal here, at the "Donate" button on on our site, prisonist.org or by sending your check payable to: "Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc." P.O. Box 1232, Weston, Connecticut 06883.  We have enclosed an addressed envelope for your use. Thank you.

__________ 

 

If you, a friend or a family member are experiencing a white-collar or nonviolent incarceration issue, please contact us and we will promptly send you an information package by mail, email or via Dropbox.

The darkest days of a person's life can be a

time of renewal and hope

____________

Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc.

Rev. Deacon Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Director
jgrant@prisonist.org
(o) 203-769-1096
(m) 203-339-5887
Twitter
Facebook
Linked In
Pinterest
Google+

Tumblr

Lynn Springer, Founding Advocate, Innocent Spouse & Children Project
lspringer@prisonist.org

(203) 536-5508

Rev. Monsignor Joseph Ciccone, Ed D, M Div
Supervising Minister
stjosephmissionchurch@gmail.com
(201) 982-2206

Jacqueline Polverari, MBA, MSW, Advocate
Women's Incarceration Issues
jpolverari@prisonist.org
(203) 671-5139

George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org
(203) 609-5088

Jim Gabal, Development
jgabal@prisonist.org
(203) 858-2865

Babz Rawls Ivy, Media Contact
mediababz@gmail.com
(203) 645-9278