PRAM

Supporting Central New York’s Prison Culture Inside and Out

Prison Re-entry and Aftercare Ministry (PRAM)

PRAM seeks to develop and encourage programs within participating parishes to support incarcerated men and women, their families, and to foster their successful transition back into the community through attitude adjustment and other assistance.

PRAM’s objective is to build a theological foundation with the congregations to help PRAM be sustainable over the long haul. PRAM is trying to move beyond the one or two person ministry based on one person’s inspiration to larger, more sustainable, ministries.

Currently teams are visiting and holding focus groups inside the Monroe Correctional Facility (MCF) in Brighton, NY. The program is being facilitated by a person who is affiliated with Adult Children of Addiction.

With a new office at Church of the Ascension, PRAM will offer an easy on-ramp for the parishioners to take to a connection to this ministry. PRAM will coordinate inmates and probationers reentry into the community they have left. Weekly prayer lists are distributed, and prisoners who wish

PRAM is an open-ended program (no set duration) for both men and women inmates who wish to participate. They discuss love and intimacy issues, as well as their life histories, feelings, and emotions. This program is primarily cognitive rather than religious in nature.

Additionally, long term, relationships are being formed with the programs at the University of Rochester and RIT, as well as cooperative efforts with local non-profits doing prison and re-entry work in the Rochester Area through the coalition of agencies known as Safer Monroe Area Re-entry Team (SMART).

There are plans to include tutoring at the Monroe Detention Center, possibilities for tutoring at the Industry Limited Secure Center in Rush, NY, setting up a chapter of Girls Scouts Beyond Bars here in Rochester, and other programs.

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