Corrections Corner / Susan Hall

Being a prison volunteer is a life-changing opportunity

Locally, some 15 Prisoner Visitation and Support (PVS) volunteers have responded to Jesus’ invitation to visit him in prison—more specifically, in the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute. Many, though not all, of these PVS volunteers are Catholic.

PVS is a non-denominational organization founded in 1968 by two pacifist Quakers for the purpose of visiting imprisoned conscientious objectors. PVS quickly expanded into a national organization dedicated to caring for prisoners of all types.

To this day, PVS remains the only interfaith, volunteer program in the United States authorized to visit all federal and military prisons.

Currently, more than 400 PVS volunteers make thousands of visits each year in 102 federal prisons and four military prisons across the nation.

Ninety-eight percent of these prisoners will eventually be released back into society, and the quality of their contact with the outside world while incarcerated will often determine whether following release they will commit crimes again and return to prison.

Given the few opportunities for human contact, PVS visitors provide a valuable service in the form of help and moral support to prisoners who seek contact with someone outside the immediate prison community as they struggle to survive their incarceration, to live constructive lives and to maintain their self-esteem.

Here in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, we have a federal prison where those who are ready to follow Jesus’ admonition to “visit the prisoner” can enter into a life-changing opportunity.

PVS visitors regularly get to two of the three facilities at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, serving especially those who don’t have regular visitors, have long sentences, are in solitary confinement, or are on death row.

Of our 15 local volunteers, 11 visit at the maximum-security facility and four get to the medium-security facility. Two visitors come from as far away as Batesville (a two-hour and 15-minute drive one way). Others come from Danville, Bloomington, Greencastle, Terre Haute, and Dennison, Ill. One of our volunteers has visited for 31 years and will reach the young age of 90 this month.

At present, there are 67 prisoners on our visiting list, including nine on death row. Most of us visit once a month, but a few are able to visit more often.

Despite our best efforts, there are an additional 14 prisoners on a waiting list who would like to have a PVS visitor.

And that is the purpose of this column: besides being informational, we are also offering a very unique opportunity for several people to have this life-changing experience. New PVS visitors are always needed.

We visitors all agreed that we receive far more than we give. One doesn’t have to be a great conversationalist, just a great listener!

If you feel the call to do something different, something life-changing, and do it for the welfare and good of another, please contact Teresa Batto, the PVS coordinator for the Terre Haute complex, for more information. Her e-mail address is: tbatto@cinergymetro.net.
 

(Susan Hall is a Prisoner Visitation and Support volunteer. She is also a member of St. Benedict Parish in Terre Haute and of the archdiocese’s Corrections Advisory Committee.) †