“I, prisoner for the Lord” writes Paul (Eph 4) Now that it’s Prison Banned Book Week, I think back to a scene October 2nd.
“Meals for 150 inmates,” the Booking officer said describing kitchen operations. I was alone in the booking section of the jail, Two Bridges Regional, in Maine, when a single male inmate passed through from the kitchen to general population.
It was UN Day of Nonviolence and I had been arrested protesting at Bath Iron Works which manufacturers the Aegis Class Destroyers during “Keep Space for Peace Week.” (Sign the petition to say no to NASA's reckless nuclear reactor on the moon)
It was a pleasure to vote early for prison reform in Massachusetts. S.2371 established “a review of whether the methods of data collection are appropriately screening for gender-specific risk or needs that may be addressed by evidence-based programs.” Senator-elect Erika Utyerhoeven, as Rep. filed legislation protecting the voting rights of eligible incarcerated people, visited jails and held screening of Mac Hudson’s “Behind the Wall.” At an event held at Connexion Church in 2025 Erika provided copies of the legislation she filed, H.2636/S.1725 “An act Creating Independent Correctional Oversight office.”
It reads in part: “The division shall monthly publish an anonymized report summarizing each complaint received and the resolution of the complaint. The report shall include the facility to which each complaint pertained. The data collected shall be disaggregated by age, race, ethnicity, language, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.”
All the more urgent, after late July 2026, since the death of Shacoby Kenny was ruled a homicide by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. We need to implement the recommendations of the Special Legislative Commission on Structural Racisim in Correctional Facilities of the Commonwealth. https://plsma.org/on-the-homicide-ruling-in-the-death-of-shacoby-kenny-and-the-urgent-need-for-independent-correctional-oversight/ Perhaps there is a step we can take, whether it’s voting or volunteering as a reader with Free Minds poets (https://freemindsbookclub.org/)
I think of the nutritional needs of that group of 150 after a course on nutrition I started this week, sponsored by UMass, provided to Head Start parents. In prayer, I think of the inmates and also ask myself what am I doing to dismantle the prison system? In the readings of the day, we are told that in following the way of Jesus we must settle with our neighbor.
It’s a call to participation in Jesus’s Nonviolence and if we don’t make the accounting we will be put in prison until we pay the last cent. (Lk 12:58-59). A step for charity followed by a work of justice, shop local for LGBTQIA+ Book donations for People in Prison! (<https://bookshop.org/wishlists/89521bf3676f984cad2c94d4b7eb7a6cd63d9d8b>)
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What do you think of this passage? What is at stake here? How would you evaluate this author's claim? With what criteria do you support your view? Which authority would you point to as an authority of the principal at stake in your view?