Changing lives
Jan Arriens reflects on twenty-five years of witness
Recently, LifeLines – an organisation whose members correspond with prisoners on death row in the US – has been marking its twenty-fifth anniversary. Over that time we have put over 5,000 people in this country in touch with condemned men and women. From the outset, there has been a close Quaker involvement – not least publicity in the Friend. Breaking the isolation The very first prisoner with whom I corresponded, in 1987, was a man in Mississippi called John Irving. His death sentence was later overturned and he was eventually released after thirty-one years in incarceration. For our conference last October, marking the anniversary, John sent the following message: ‘There are not very many people about whom I can say, “their presence and activity in my life preserved my humanity and made my life better because they passed through it”. I can say this about those members of LifeLines who corresponded with me for most of the years that I was on the Row. LifeLines broke the isolation the government kept our humanity in. I and a number of others on death row, who didn’t get executed by the state of Mississippi, would have, except for the presence of Clive and LifeLines.’
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