JewishPrisonerServices.org
Title
Jewish Prisoner Services International
Description
All About Us
Jewish Prisoner Services International had its origins as an organization sponsored by B'nai B'rith International. JPSI currently functions on a totally independent basis. Its mission is to provide direct spiritual, outreach and advocacy services for Jewish prisoners and their loved ones while concurrently working in conjunction with several major Jewish organizations and social service agencies. Assistance is rendered throughout the United States, Canada, Israel and elsewhere around the globe. JPSI's directors and staff come from all branches of Judaism. We are primarily a volunteer-driven organization that includes rabbis, lay leaders, educators, businessmen, attorneys, other professionals, and even a judge. In addition, ex-offenders who had been recipients of the group's programs will frequently join JPSI to assist in furthering its worthy much-needed objectives.
Among our most successful inmate programs are the professionally-conducted Marriage Enrichment Seminars. These two-day programs designed for Jewish prisoners and their wives are produced by Larry Karlin, JPSI vice-chairman, and conducted by Dr. Bernard Guerney, a former Pennsylvania State University professor of human development. He has adapted his "Relationship Enhancement Program" to specifically reduce the high rate of divorces attributed to the trauma of forced separation that is part and parcel of the incarceration experience.
In recent years, we have matched hundreds of Jewish prisoners with compatible pen-pals. We have continued our Holiday Greeting Card Program in which we send Rosh Hashanah, Pesach and Hanukkah cards to prisoners so that they may, in turn, send them out to their family and friends. This helps them to maintain contact with their families and gives them a feeling of inclusion during the holiday as opposed to reinforcing their already heightened feelings of isolation and despair.
