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Group Invites the Public Into State Prisons

Virginia is already spending over a billion dollars a year on its department of corrections - a system responsible for more than 30,000 prisoners.  To meet the social and spiritual needs of some, it depends on volunteers from a Christian group called Grace Inside.  

Lynn Litchfield isn’t an actress.  She’s an ordained minister, but you’ll often find her in a church performing.  She wears a bright orange jumpsuit as she portrays a character named Hope - the widowed mother of three who stole to feed her family and is now praying as she awaits a transfer from jail to prison.

“I’m sorry.  I should have come up with a better way, but I didn’t.  God, I still don’t understand.  Two years in prison for stealing $210 worth of groceries?  Two years and a felony for that extra ten bucks?  The last thing I ever meant to do was abandon my kids, but that’s just what I have done.”

Litchfield says her performance often leaves church goers in tears, and - in some cases - ready to sign up for service in prison.

“Volunteers come in to teach classes: Christian parenting, or basic Bible study, resume writing or grief group.”

Others want to give money to make the holidays happier behind bars.

“At some of the facilities we’re allowed to give out a toiletry kit and a packet of greeting cards and Christmas cards.”

A few will donate things prisoners need when they’re released.

“Sometimes they don’t have a cane to walk with or crutches or a wheel chair.  Sometimes they don’t have clothing.”

And Litchfield hopes all come away realizing prison inmates are just people.

“People who have got caught making a bad decision or caught up in a bad set of circumstances.  Any of us could land there were it not for the help that we get, and sometimes in life you get good help, and sometimes in life you don’t.”

Volunteers go through a two-hour orientation and visit prisons along with chaplains.  Litchfield says they have no reason to fear, arguing people are in greater danger at their neighborhood grocery store.

“You don’t know who has a weapon.  You don’t know whether people needing psych medicine are on their psych meds.  You don’t know if they carry tuberculosis.  In prison we do.”

Grace inside began in 1920 with a single chaplain serving Virginia’s only penitentiary. Today, nearly a hundred years later, 31 chaplains and 1,700 volunteers serve 35 different prisons in the state.

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief
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