Angela Jeffs - Lifelines

LIFELINES

The very concept of the Death Row in American prisons, although thankfully remote from us, is still chilling. For those three thousand prisoners, in thirty-four states, faced with uncertainty about life and death on a daily basis, the reality must be unbearable.  Some sense of their predicament was brought home to members of the Bridge of Allan and Dunblane Rotary Club by the visiting speaker, Angela Jess.  Angela is a member of LifeLines, an organization whose members communicate by letter and cards with prisoners on Death Row.

In a recent letter, one of these prisoners wrote to a member of LifeLines:

“We all start out knowing magic.  We are born with whirlwinds, wildflowers and comets inside us.  We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand.   But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls.....The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us.....People lose their way...”

Ironically, and sadly, this prisoner was executed the day before Angela’s talk.  He had been writing to a member of LifeLines for a number of years, and had built up a relationship that allowed him to write in this very moving, personal way.

LifeLines was founded in 1988 by Jan Arriens, a former diplomat from Australia.  He was appalled by what he learned from a BBC film that showed the circumstances and conditions of prisoners on Death Row. Many of these prisoners are held there for as long as twenty-five years not knowing if or when they will face execution.  Angela, an editor and publisher, and a member of Amnesty International, had spent twenty-six years in Japan.  It was when she returned to Scotland that she learned from an article in the Guardian newspaper about LifeLines and about its members who were writing to prisoners. Some were communicating by letter, others simply by postcard. Twenty-two of these LifeLines writers were living in Scotland.  

Having contacted Lifelines and agreed to become involved, Angela received a letter from a prisoner.  From that initial contact, their correspondence grew. Angela developed a more profound understanding of the meaning and implications of freedom, and the affect of losing hope of returning to a normal life.  Angela’s correspondent was recently found not guilty of the murder with which he was originally charged as a young man.  Like at least seven others from Death Row whose sentence has been reviewed, he now awaits the outcome of a new hearing.

For prisoners, the link provided by LifeLines communications is, almost literally, a lifeline. Those who have been incarcerated for upwards of twenty years, have lost the majority, or all, of their other contacts with the outside world.  LifeLines correspondence can then become their only link with people and events outside the jail.  As one prisoner wrote: “Through the bars comes your letter from another world....I am not alone”. 

For anyone wishing to find out more about LifeLines, Angela suggested looking at the website: http://www.lifelines-uk.org.uk.  Lifelines also produces a magazine: The Wing of Friendship.

Speaker’s Host John Kilby commented on how moving he – and, he was sure, other members – had found Angela’s talk.  It was hard to contemplate the conditions under which these prisoners lived.  He asked members to join him in expressing thanks to Angela.