Dear Friends,
 Please join us tomorrow evening -- Tuesday, June 21st -- at 7:00 p.m. at the Riverside Church in uptown Manhattan for "Torture in New York State Prisons?". This important event will focus on conditions within New York State prisons and the use of solitary confinement and its impact on prisoners.
The program is organized by the Metro New York Religious Campaign Against Torture, which was cofounded by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and tomorrow night's event is cohosted by Linda Rousseau, a leader of FOR's New York City chapter.
The first speaker, Mary Beth Pfeiffer, who writes for the Poughkeepsie Journal, has been an investigative reporter for 15 years and journalist for more than 30 years. Mary Beth is author of Crazy in America: The Hidden Tragedy of the Criminalized Mentally Ill (Carroll & Graf, 2007), which grew out of reporting on the abuses of people with mental illness in New York State prisons. Ms. Pfeiffer is a former Soros Justice Media Fellow and has won numerous awards for her work. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, and other publications.
The second speaker, Jack Beck has been the director of the prison Visiting Project at the Correctional Association of New York. The Correctional Association (CA) has statutory authority to inspect prisons in New York State and to report its findings to the legislature and public. Mr. Beck will give an overview of how solitary confinement is used in New York prisons as well as the administrative and legislative restrictions placed on its use.
Lastly, a person from the Riverside Church Prison Ministry program will give testimony about his experience within the New York State prison system.
We hope to see you at the event.
Contacts: Patricia Chernoff
Linda Rousseau |
