The Pennsylvania Prison Society hosts a volunteer gathering near Pittsburgh in spring 2023. Prison monitoring director Noah Barth, fifth from the right, said the society is always looking for more volunteers to help meet with inmates and keep an eye on conditions at prisons and jails throughout the state. [Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Prison Society]<\/p>\n
A nonprofit that meets with Pennsylvania prisoners and inspects conditions in prisons is looking for new volunteers in the area.<\/p>\n
The Pennsylvania Prison Society was founded in 1787 by a group of leading Revolutionary figures including Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush. They were concerned about conditions at what was then the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia, where men, women and children were incarcerated together, and inmates only received food or clothing if it was provided by family. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese were concerned citizens who saw what was happening in the jailhouse being run and felt it didn\u2019t really befit the new society that they were building,\u201d said Noah Barth, prison monitoring director for the Pennsylvania Prison Society.<\/p>\n
The opening of the Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829 heralded the advent of the modern prison system, where prison walls were closed to the public for the first time. <\/p>\n
The state legislature enshrined the Pennsylvania Prison Society\u2019s right to conduct independent oversight by meeting privately with inmates and to inspect living conditions at their prison. <\/p>\n
A full-time staff of 25 people is augmented by a volunteer corps of about 250 trained monitors, who are organized in chapters around the state. <\/p>\n
The society runs several areas of programming to support people in prison and maintain family bonds during incarceration. <\/p>\n
Last year, the society responded to 14,000 letters and phone calls for its family helpline.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times, prisons are not transparent, by nature,\u201d Barth said. \u201cSo people need help understanding policy. We help them set up visitor accounts. We get them information about how to contact the prison. They may have heard a rumor about a lockdown or some other issue \u2014 we help verify that.\u201d <\/p>\n
When people have a specific issue inside a facility, the society will refer it to a local chapter, who will send a volunteer to meet with that person and hear them out. <\/p>\n
The volunteer will check in with the family to let them know what\u2019s going on. They\u2019ll also check in with a staff member or lead volunteer to make a plan on how to address the issue.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it\u2019s a matter of helping an inmate \u201cuntangle the wires\u201d to understand prison policy or contact the right person, Barth said. Where inmates feel they\u2019re not being treated correctly, the volunteers will work with the prison administration to try to address the issues. <\/p>\n
Barth said the society works to build cooperative relationships with jail and prison administrators throughout the state. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe can flag issues \u2014 \u2018Hey, this gentleman says he\u2019s been on antipsychotic meds his whole adult life. He\u2019s been in your custody for two weeks. Hasn\u2019t received him yet. His mom\u2019s really worried about what might happen if he doesn\u2019t get him. Can you send a nurse to go check him out?’\u201d Barth said. \u201cOccasionally, when situations are particularly bad, then staff will get more involved, and we may do further advocacy, but that\u2019s less typical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, 3,500 volunteers participated in the program. <\/p>\n
Ten of them were in Fayette, Greene and Washington counties, where they visited 133 inmates in state prisons and county jails. <\/p>\n
While volunteers are plentiful in areas like Philadelphia or State College, Barth said there are areas where they\u2019re looking to build the capacity. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re limited, and that means we\u2019re slower to respond,\u201d Barth said. \u201cAnd one of my tasks is to help build our network such that anyone anywhere in the state can get a visit from us in a timely manner.\u201d <\/p>\n
One of the 10 volunteers locally is Christopher McKenzie, a Carmichaels resident who\u2019s gone into SCI-Fayette and SCI-Greene, as well as the Allegheny County Jail. <\/p>\n
He\u2019d always been passionate about incarceration, and learned about the program from someone in Harrisburg when he was at the state capital advocating for change related to drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just found that the people at the Prison Society really do care a lot, and that\u2019s something that aligned with my values and goals, and I decided to pursue it because I do believe that it\u2019s important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He started volunteering a year-and-a-half ago. Being able to listen to the problems of someone who felt unheard and work with administration to solve their problems has been \u201cvery fulfilling,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you from personal experience that sometimes communication is very hard, and so when you feel heard, it means the world, and you can see that in the faces of the people and the body language of the people we\u2019re speaking to,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
On top of having their issues addressed, inmates also just appreciate having the experience and not being ignored and talking with an empathetic listener, Barth said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe get thank you letters and calls all the time, just on how much it mattered to them, or how much it mattered to their family member to have someone come in and see them, and give them a call back, and just say, \u2018Hey, I met with Noah. He said he\u2019s doing all right,’\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Barth said the Prison Society is actively recruiting new members in Fayette and Greene counties. <\/p>\n
At bimonthly online volunteer information sessions, the Pennsylvania Prison Society runs hour-long sessions where Barth gives a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer period. To sign up for a session, go to bit.ly\/4hgFFTB.<\/p>\n
After applying, interested people will go through a Zoom interview with a staff member. <\/p>\n
If that goes well, it will be followed up by a background check and a multi-step training process, after which they\u2019ll be paired up with a staff member or experienced volunteer for a series of visits to the prison they\u2019ll be covering. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose series of visits alongside Prison Society staff really make it clear the importance of what we\u2019re doing and how much those visits mean to people and how serious some of those concerns can be,\u201d McKenzie said. <\/p>\n
Those visits can be even more important at places like Fayette or Greene counties, where there are fewer volunteers and inmates in the state prisons might be several hours from family. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that some of the people that are at those prisons have an additional level of desperation to talk to people,\u201d McKenzie said. \u201cThey really, really feel the need to have somebody listen to them in a real way that\u2019s non-judgmental, that gives them dignity, respect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pennsylvania Prison Society hosts a volunteer gathering near Pittsburgh in spring 2023. Prison monitoring director Noah Barth,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2298,3140,28,30,29,77521,437],"class_list":["post-291375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-fayette-county","tag-greene-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-prison-society","tag-washington-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}