Come Walk With Us October 15!

 The following Open Forum piece was submitted to the Daily News-Record by Jim Orndoff of the local Valley Justice Coalition:

Thanks to the initiative taken by Bill Kyger, chair of our Community Criminal Justice Board (and others), local citizens concerned about ways of improving our Harrisonburg/Rockingham County justice system are invited to a community meeting with the CCJB on Monday, October 15, 7 pm at JMU’s Memorial Hall (former Harrisonburg High School). 

Presenters will be Kathy Rowings of the National  Association of Counties, and Neal Goodloe, Criminal Justice Planner of the Jefferson Area CCJB, each speaking on best practices known to reduce the number of non-violent inmates in local jails and to help offenders become productive, tax-paying  members of their communities.  

Groups like Faith in Action, a coalition of 26 local congregations, Valley Justice Coalition, Northeast Neighborhood Association and other city/county groups are encouraged by this development, and are urging all interested local residents to attend. Translation services will be available.

As a show of community support, a 6 pm gathering has been planned at the parking lot between Otterbein United Methodist Church and Community Mennonite Church (along South High Street) to walk together past our local jail, along Liberty Street to MLK Way and on to Memorial Hall.

Come walk with us…

…If you want to support our community in becoming an outstanding model for best criminal justice practices in the Commonwealth and beyond.

…If you agree with our Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst that jails should become more like a greenhouse for helping inmates to gain more positive attitudes and better skills for a successful reentry, and not just be warehouses for purposes of punishment.

…If you would like to see our community trend toward the use of more Restorative Justice practices, where the needs of victims are a primary consideration, and which works at concrete ways for offenders to actually make restitution for their wrongs. 

…If you support creative alternatives to incarceration that are already in place, like the new Drug Court program, made possible through the efforts of people like Judge Bruce Albertson and Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst.  

…If you would like to see an alternative for already stressed families to the 'add-on tax’ of the $1 per day ‘keep fee’ currently charged to the over 300 people in our local jail, and the $3 daily fee for inmates needing to be housed at the Middle River Jail, which now holds over 200 of our local inmates.

…If you would like to see our community engage in a careful process of hiring a Community Justice Planner to help all of the moving parts of a complex criminal justice system work together effectively, and to help come up with ways of re-investing our budgets to get the maximum benefit from our tax dollars.

…If you think the 600% increase in the number of people we have behind bars since our jail was built in 1995 is excessive in light of our population having increased only around 25% during that time.

Come walk with us!