One year after opening its resource center at First Baptist Church in Iowa City, the Inside Out Reentry Community serving formerly incarcerated people living in Johnson County is gaining ground.
Inside Out will continue our community discussions on Criminal Justice Reform with a DVD series — beginning this Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7:00 at First Baptist (500 N. Clinton; in the basement community room). We’ll watch the 2009 PBS documentary “The Released” that shows how several returning citizens with mental illness handle their return to the community after incarceration. About 1/3 of people in U.S. prisons have a serious, chronic mental illness.
We’ve had 2 great discussions on the first half of Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy so far and will have 2 more meetings to discuss the last half — on Thursdays, Sept. 24 and Oct. 1, at 7:00 p.m. We meet in the basement of First Baptist Church, 500 N. Clinton, where the IO center is located upstairs. We hear from folks who have been on the “inside”, discuss local and national issues of racial Read more
Inside Out Reentry will participate in Iowa City’s One Community, One Book program as part of its work for criminal justice education and reform. Inside Out invites the public to join in a discussion group on Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy on four Thursdays at 7:00 p.m., Sept. 10 – Oct. 1, prior to Stevenson’s talk at the Iowa Memorial Union on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 2:00 p.m. (more…)
The UI Center for Human Rights, UNESCO City of Literature/Iowa City Book Festival and Geneva Lecture Series, along with Prairie Lights Books are bringing Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, to the IMU on October 4 to give a lecture. Bryan Stevenson is an attorney in Montgomery, Alabama who started a nonprofit group, the Equal Justice Initiative, http://www.eji.org, soon after finishing law school. This organization works with death penalty cases, race and poverty issues, children Read more
[Source: “AmeriCorps staffs effort help offenders rebuild key community ties,” The Gazette, 31 March 2014, by Steve Gravelle]
Steve Gravelle
MARCH 31, 2014 | 11:13 PM
Next to family, corrections officials say a relationship with community is key to preventing an offender’s return to jail or prison. But building or rebuilding that connection can be difficult when one hasn’t been part of the community for months or years.
“We’re trying to fill that hole,” said Nellie O’Mara-Morrissey, restorative justice community coordinator for the Each One Reach One program. (more…)