Learning together

ARTICLE: Is the "First Step Act" Real Reform?: The Marshall Project 
​The First Step Act, which passed the House of Representatives Tuesday (May 22, 2018) has been a hot-button topic for Congress. It addresses the dire need for rehabilitative services in the federal prison system, proves there is strong bipartisan support for at least modest criminal justice reform and underscores a strategic debate that has split the Democratic Party.
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Video: Life on Parole: Frontline
From Vaughn Gresham, who was arrested for the first time at age 16, to Jessica Proctor, who spent nearly a decade behind bars for assault with physical injury, Life on Parole is a remarkable, firsthand look at why some people stay out of jail, why some go back, and how one state is trying to break the cycle of recidivism. 
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Article: The Hardest Lesson on Tier 2C -  The Marshall Project :: Eli Hager
Attending school in a prison setting was unlike anything I have ever experienced. The very concept of a school in an adult jail is a total paradox. These kids are being prosecuted as adults. They are facing decades in prison and a lifelong criminal record. They are not allowed to visit their families, and are being held with thousands of grown men in a place that is fundamentally unsafe. Everything about their experience is telling them they have no future, no potential, and no worth.  But then… there’s school?
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Article: When They Get Out: Atlantic (1999)
Popular perceptions about crime have blurred the boundaries between fact and politically expedient myth. The myth is that the United States is besieged, on a scale never before encountered, by a pathologically criminal underclass. The fact is that we're not. After spiraling upward during the drug wars, murder rates began falling in the mid-1990s; they are lower today than they were more than twenty years ago. In some cities the murder rate in the late twentieth century is actually lower than it was in the nineteenth century. Nonviolent property-crime rates are in general lower in the United States today than in Great Britain, and are comparable to those in many European countries.
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Self-led Learning page lists historic offerings and more to help deepen your knowledge.

CHECK OUT updates to our advocacy - Some good NEWS

UUPMI Calendar

June 17 - Brave Space
                  10:30 am - Hinsdale Unitarian
Aug 12 - With UUANI & Youth Justice Council
                 9 & 10:45 am - Unity Temple

Events you should know about

Poor People's Campaign​

• Mon, June 11: IL Poor People’s Campaign action on economic justice/basic human needs
• Mon, June 18: IL Poor People’s Campaign action on our national m oral narrative:  The Illinois Poor People's Campaign is coming to Chicago! On Monday, June 18, six weeks of moral fusion direct action in Springfield will culminate with a 6pm solidarity march with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless starting at the former tent city site at Wilson & Lake Shore Drive. An interfaith justice revival will follow at 7pm at our own (UU/UCC) People's Church of Chicago (941 W Lawrence), where we will celebrate those who participated in direct actions in Springfield, send off a delegation to the national rally in DC, and launch our voter activation campaign.
  Monday, June 18
  6pm Solidarity March with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, starting at Wilson & Lake Shore Drive.
  7pm Interfaith Justice Revival at People's Church of Chicago (941 W Lawrence), with speaker Rami Nashashibi of Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), music, and much more.

​​Cook County Jail Voter Registration​
Voter Rights Group is looking for volunteers to register voters at the Cook County Jail each month, on:​​​
June 10 2018 3-6 pm 
July 8 2018 3-6 pm
Click here to sign up
All volunteers must complete a Voter Registrar training. ​​

Click here for more information about events

Our Mission

We equip UU's in Illinois to ​transform institutions and support people harmed by the prison industrial complex.  Read More

We need your help! We can sustain this ministry only if we have the support of people who care about our shared humanity with people in prison. Your contribution will help fund our quarter-time minister’s salary, benefits, and travel costs, plus the costs of our education offerings to congregations.

The In Prison Ministry works to create a spiritual space where all people can come as they are and be affirmed in their inherent worth and dignity, no matter their identities or past harm they may have caused. 

The outside work of the UU Prison Ministry focuses on preparing our congregations to become radically welcoming places for formerly incarcerated and convicted people. We embrace the call of Unitarian Universalism to make our congregations accepting of all people.

​The Prison Ministry will also connect UUs to local and state-level policy  initiatives that seek to build a world community of peace, liberty and justice for all.

Donate Now

Our Donate button will take you to the website of our fiscal sponsor, the Unitarian Church of Evanston (UCE).  Please be sure to specify that your donation is meant to support the UU Prison Ministry of Illinois, so we get credit for it.  UCE is a 501(c)3 organization, so your contributions are tax-deductible.