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Prisoners’ Week is a churches’ initiative that aims to celebrate and raise awareness of the work in Scotland to support prisoners and their families. This year, the theme has been Hope Within and throughout the week the National Prison Visitors Centre Steering Group has encouraged family members and friends who visit people in prison to share their hopes for their families, friends and communities.

When we think about reform of the justice system and rehabilitation we tend to focus on education, employability and housing. When considering how to make society safer and fairer, the impact of the justice system on prisoners’ families and the vital role they play in supporting their family members throughout their sentence and after release is often overlooked. 

The most recent Prisoners Survey results suggests nine out of ten prisoners are in regular contact with friends and family outside prison and on any given night 10,000 children in Scotland have a parent in prison.

Prisoners’ families have been described as “the most effective resettlement agency”. Prisoners who maintain good contact with their family are six times less likely to re-offend. Over half of prisoners move in with family or friends on release and a further twenty per cent have their rent or mortgage covered by family members while they are in prison. Only around sixteen per cent have a job to go to on release – mostly with the help of previous employers, family or friends. Above all – prisoners’ families are important to them because they love them. 

 

And prisoners are very important to their families. One family member responding to our Prisoners’ Week campaign wrote:

 

“Why do I write, visit and accept calls? Why do I hold it down and keep things in order at home? Because when you love someone unconditionally you are their backbone and their strength. Love knows no boundaries. Regardless of the situation, turning my back is not an option. This is how we roll…”

That unconditional love is perhaps most important of all for children. Research shows that the quality of our relationship with our parents during childhood has a life-long influence on how well we do in school, our health and our relationships with other people. That is every bit as true if a parent is in prison. Prisoners’ children are more likely than other children to experience disadvantage, mental health problems and to go on to offend. So it is hugely important that all prisoners and their families should have access to initiatives which allow imprisoned parents to play a positive and active role in their children’s lives – from Bookbug sessions and parenting programmes to homework clubs and Halloween parties. Just because someone is in prison, it does not and should not stop families from loving each other, supporting each other and planning their futures together.

Many Visitors Centres work with prisoners’ children to encourage them to express their hopes. I believe that small people should have big dreams so it made me smile to see some of these such as “I hope to play for Man City” and “I hope to be a politician”. One young person had written that they dreamed of doing a PhD in nuclear physics!

Others with more modest aspirations reveal the pain of separation. “We will be a family again” is a sad hope to see written in childish handwriting. “I hope Dad will be home for Christmas” is a common theme.

Others write  “For people to realise the effect of bullying”, and “I hope that bullies just disappear”. For too many children, stigma and trauma are part and parcel of having a parent in prison - burdens no child should have to carry.

I hope that the voices of prisoners and their families will continue to be heard and they will be supported to achieve their aspirations as we all deserve to be. Because for all of us to thrive we all need something to do, someone to love and something to hope for.

 

For more information on the importance of families and how you can continue to support them visit www.familiesoutside.org.uk

I have to admit to a real excitement when, from the heart of our Church, I heard Pope Francis condemn nuclear weapons and affirm the Christian obligation to nonviolence. 

As a member of Pax Christi, it was a privilege to be invited to a Vatican-hosted conference on the theme “Perspectives for a world free from nuclear weapons and for integral disarmament”. It is not often that students, diplomats, theologians, activists, Hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bomb) and Nobel peace laureates from around the world meet to reflect on how, together, we can work for a nuclear free world.  It was encouraging, too, that Bishop William Nolan, President of the Justice and Peace Scotland Commission, took part in the Conference. 

An unexpected highlight was the personal greeting we received from Pope Francis.  That he made himself available to meet this group of over 350 people was a witness and sign of his great humanity and solidarity with the people of the world.

A key ‘take-away’ for me was, of course, the shift by the Church from a position held since 1982 that nuclear deterrence was only morally acceptable as part of a process to nuclear disarmament to today’s position of condemnation of their threat, use and possession.

Building on years of excellent work to make clear the humanitarian and environmental impact of nuclear weapons and nuclear testing that has been undertaken by organisations such as the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), CND, and Pax Christi, Pope Francis was able to say, “if we also take into account the risk of an accidental detonation as a result of error of any kind, the threat of their use, as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned.  For they exist in the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race.”

The 30 contributions to the Conference were not all from those ‘on our side’. Rose Gottemoeller, NATO Deputy Secretary General, cautioned the need for verifiable, progressive disarmament - wanting a nuclear free world but without jeopardising security.  Dr Emily Landau, research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel suggested that paths to peace are determined by states and not by weapons. She said that for seven decades, nuclear weapons have been weapons of deterrence.

Overwhelmingly, however, speakers affirmed the need to move away from policies of fear, deterrence, militarism towards human, integral peace and security. Cardinal Turkson reminded us “nuclear weapons reduce the ability to invest in real security”.   Mohamed el Baradei, (former Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency) elaborated on this theme, saying that a security based on nuclear weapons is a ‘contradictory’ security, causing more suspicion and fear. There is no shortage of money, but there are skewed priorities.

I also took away a strong resolve to find even better and more effective ways of sharing this powerful message.  Several times we heard of the importance of civil society and faith based groups in particular. Beatrice Finn of ICAN spoke of the role of people of faith as a ‘constant life-light’ in support for her own campaign – which has rightly been awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

We have to both amplify the message of the Church and be an advocate for it at national level – with governments and with Bishops’ Conferences.  A passionate plea came from Bishop McElroy of San Diego, “The ministry of the Church in the promotion of peace must at its core be one of conversion to new ways of thinking in the hearts of individuals and the international system.”

Our campaigning toolbox has been enhanced by this Conference and its messages. How creative and persuasive can we be in turning these powerful words into policy?

 

For a full text of Pope Francis’ speech:
http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/11/10/171110e.html

 

Pat Gaffney is General Secretary of the British Section of Pax Christi
www.paxchristi.org.uk

 

Photograph courtesy of National Catholic Reporter.

Calais, a sunny autumn afternoon, the trees beginning to change colour, the grass in Saint-Pierre Park a rich green. The slight breeze carries downwind a diaphanous mist from the centrepiece of the park: the bronze fountain of the Three Graces. Between the tiers of the fountain stand the slim figures of the Three Graces. Protected by a curtain of falling water, they stare out into the all but empty park. Thalia, representing youthful beauty; Euphrosyne, laughter; and Aglaea, elegance.

 

How many of the citizens of Calais, I wonder, are aware of the graces in their midst? Because in this economically depressed city, where smiles amongst its resident citizens are as rare as hens’ teeth, where refugees experience harassment, intimidation and violence from police and local racists, it is amongst the community of several hundred refugees, most of whom live 24/7 outdoors, that the Three Graces abound.

 

Let me bear witness to the group of young Eritreans and Ethiopians amongst whom I have lived for many weeks this year. We’ve eaten together, cleaned together, prayed together. The small house in a back street of Calais offers sanctuary to a very small number of refugees. The priority: minors and those discharged from hospital. Habte was in hospital for two weeks after being badly beaten on the head by the police. Samuel walks awkwardly on crutches, his ankle truncheoned by a member of the French riot police. Michael returns to the house at 7.30 in the morning, his jeans saturated in blood just below his left knee after a beating from the police. He describes the weapon used: a telescopic truncheon with a steel ball on the end. Yet Michael is someone who can have the whole room in laughter, the living embodiment of the spirit of Euphrosyne.

 

Each Sunday half a dozen or so young Eritreans come to the house. One of them is a Deacon in the Orthodox Church who will lead a service of Christian worship in Tigrinya, the language of most of the Eritreans in Calais. The energy they bring is palpable. Despite months of living outdoors in the wastelands of the town, they smile and laugh. There are hugs all round. The house is flooded with the spirit of “The Three Graces”, youthful beauty, laughter, and elegance. There’s elegance in their politeness, in their gratitude, in their gentle reverence during prayer. And, with a bit of licence, elegance in their attire. These young guys, mostly still teenagers, want to look cool. Incongruous it might seem as winter approaches, but many wear fashionable skinny fit ripped jeans.

 

Amongst the young Ethiopians and Eritreans Christians I met, faith seems as second nature as breathing.

On their way to the kitchen to eat some breakfast many of the boys go first to the chapel to pray. As they leave the house, many ask Br Johannes for a blessing.
Last January, I arranged for a Belgian journalist and his cameraman colleague to meet two Eritrean boys who had just arrived back in Calais. The journalist said he would buy us all a meal. What would the boys like to eat he asked. Pizza they said. Off we went to Pizza Hut. After a long wait, the food eventually arrived on our table. The journalist, the cameraman and myself immediately tucked in. I then looked across at the boys. The boxes their pizzas were in remained unopened. The boys’ heads were reverently bowed, they were making the sign of the cross, praying in Tigrinya, then once more making the sign of the cross. Only then did they begin to eat. In my shame, I made a quick sign of the cross before continuing with my food.
 
“A Christian’s light can’t be hidden; such a bright lamp can’t be concealed. So, let’s not neglect this.”  St John Chrysostum.  How true these words are as a reflection of the young Eritreans and Ethiopians in Calais.