Assistance to Jewish prisoners and their families in Washington is provided, in conjunction with other social service agencies, by one full-time chaplain and several volunteers. This chaplaincy program is primarily funded by individual donations.
Being a pluralist organization, JPSI’s programs cover the needs of clients from all mainstream branches of Judaism.
As prison populations continue to explode, more and more Jewish inmates, recent releasees and their families are finding themselves in need of Jewish chaplaincy services, which include: Religious rights advocacy, visitation, counseling, correspondence/mailings, religious materials supply, educational programs/seminars, anti-missionary assistance, alternative punishment proposals, legal referral, emergency family assistance, post-release assistance and community liaison.
JPSI tends to adult and juvenile Jewish prisoners who are spread around state prison facilities, community corrections centers (i.e., work release and “halfway houses”), county and local jails, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, juvenile detention facilities and state mental hospitals.
Assistance is also available to those on court-mandated community supervision (i.e., parole, probation and various forms of community placement).
Chaplain Gary Friedman serves as the Jewish prison and jail chaplain for the Pacific Northwest and is the current chairman of JPSI. He is also the Jewish community representative on and chair of the Washington State Department of Corrections Religious Services Advisory Committee, is the communications chairman of the American Correctional Chaplains Association, and serves on various committees of the American Correctional Association and the American Jail Association. He was selected as the national corrections industry Chaplain of the Year for 2005–2006.