Interfaith Action for Human Rights

Education and grassroots organizing: public awareness of our issues is the foundation for all our progress. Our best ally is a compassionate electorate that is well informed on the conditions of incarceration. Over the last year, iahr has sponsored innovative online programming regarding conditions of confinement -- including interviews with significant authors, progressive practitioners, and returning citizens. Iahr has continued to add new partners to its work which now include arnold & porter, Rights behind bars, free minds book club and writing workshop, muslim advocates, and the Virginia Interfaith center for public policy. We also continued to build our advisory council of over 20 faith leaders in our region, to help guide and assist iahr in its work and community outreach.

Pen pal program: over 4,600 d.c. Residents are incarcerated in 122 prisons around the united states. D.c. Residents are incarcerated in prisons from California to Florida to upstate new york. D.c. Residents in prison often feel very isolated since they are often incarcerated so far from home. In 2022, approximately 125 iahr volunteers served as pen pals, writing to at least one d.c. resident incarcerated in a federal prison once a month for a year. A key goal of the program is to reduce the likelihood that these incarcerated persons will commit crimes after they are released.

Advocacy: in 2022, the Virginia general assembly took another step forward toward ending solitary confinement in the state's prisons. for the second year in a row, the Virginia senate voted to limit solitary confinement to no more than 15 consecutive days, passing sb108. This bill was written by the Virginia coalition on solitary confinement, organized and staffed by iahr. The house of delegates, while not ready to join the senate in immediate reform, did pass a substitute, by a unanimous vote, that raised the legislative priority of the issue by establishing a work group to study the use of restorative housing (solitary confinement) within state correctional facilities and juvenile correctional centers. In Maryland, delegate jazz lewis (d.24th district) sponsored iahr's legislation, hb67, that would mandate the department of public safety and correctional services to provide transitional services to anyone in solitary confinement six months prior to their release. Iahr has promoted the bill as safeguarding public safety as well as providing needed services to incarcerated people soon to be released. The Maryland senate passed hb67/sb977 without opposition.