Comments Policy

The purpose of this site is to provide information and assistance to those working or interested in detention ministry. The purpose of comments here is to allow response, discussion and mutual assistance within the community of such persons online. But all communities have explicit and implicit rules to ensure their survival. The role of establishing and enforcing these rules is the job of yours truly, the Editor.

1. Commenting here is moderated. This means that the Editor has the chance to take a good look at all comments before they are posted. The Editor reserves the right to not post a comment for any reason the Editor sees fit to consider. Comments that are abusive, offensive, contain profane or racist material or violate either the Blogger Terms of Service or Blogger Content Policy will not be posted, and if they get through somehow, will be deleted immediately. Name-calling, personal or ad hominem attacks, racist comments or use of profanity by any commenter will not be tolerated and will result in the deletion of the comment and the Editor declining to post further comments from that person. This policy will be applied without notice.
2. Trolls will not be fed here, but they will be deleted.
3. Because this site deals with sensitive issues of imprisonment and of faith, some commenters may find it preferable not to fully identify themselves. The Editor may allow this, with the proviso that reasonable confirmation of the commenter's real identity by e-mail may be required before a comment is posted, and consistent identification in the comments is maintained. The creation of a Blogger/Google id before posting is not currently required, but the right to change to such a requirement is reserved by the Editor.
4. This site adheres to the Welborn protocol: all e-mail received by Detention Ministry News is considered intended for publication unless otherwise indicated by the writer. If you don't want your name to be used in a quote from e-mail, say so. The Editor reserves the right to edit all e-mail before posting.
5. You are responsible for your comments. Read and post here at your own risk.

The interpretation of these rules is completely up to the Editor. Reading and posting comments at Detention Ministry News constitutes acknowledgment of and agreement to the terms outlined in this comment policy. This comment policy may be revised in part or in full at any time.

Notes:

• Inspiration for these policies and the manner of their enforcement comes from the exemplary work that Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden have done at Making Light. Comment policies from a number of different sites were reviewed in drafting this policy, in particular Jeralyn Merritt's excellent TalkLeft comments policy.
• Yes, capitalizing "Editor" is a bit much, but at least I decline to use the editorial "we". It would cause too much giggling around the house.

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Metadata Notes

"Metadata" is one of those wonderfully wonkish terms that seems to seep into general use. Adding the prefix "meta" meaning referring to or about something, to "data" gives us a term for data that describes other data. The primary form of metadata here at Detention Ministry News are what Blogger calls labels, which could just as easily be called categories or tags. This note outlines the metadata scheme (if not schemata) for the items on this site.

This scheme uses what is called faceted classification, which means that there are a number of facets or aspects of each post, with a set vocabulary of labels for each facet. Some posts have one, more, or no labels for each facet. This approach helps with differing kinds of search, and also with organizing posts for feeds.

Here is a list of facets, with a name, a brief description, and in parenthesis whether or some posts will have labels for this facet:

Type -- what kind of post it is (all)

• article
• newsbrief
• note
• opinion
• info
• blognews

There will be a separate info post on type.

Location -- state or country of corrections system (some)

Faith Community (some)

• christian, with an additional label for major group -- orthodox, protestant, catholic
• jewish
• muslim
• native american
• buddhist
• hindu
• whatever else . . .

Facility type (some)

• jail
• prison
• juvenile

Issue (some)

• free exercise
• death penalty
• violence
• sexual abuse
• sex offender
• overcrowding
• and so many more . . .

I will be going through the existing posts to bring them into line on this. Better now, as the posts are piling up.

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Who I am

Well, I am of mixed mind about this. Any rational person would want to know the source of information -- one has to evaluate any information today, whether from the internet or not. On the other hand, any work with jails and prisons requires a certain regard for privacy and security. If one has any sense at all.

Well, let's try the good old limited hangout, which definitely dates me.

I am a Roman Catholic detention minister in California, and work inside as a team with my wife. We are currently volunteers but that could change at any time. While most of my work has been at one facility my experience includes both male and female inmates in minimum, medium and maximum security facilities, both state and federal. (That actually is fewer locations than it sounds.) No jail work at this point, but I am putting much of my time into this now, including work as a catechist inside.

Why do this site? The obvious reason -- I have always wanted a resource like this, so it seemed a good idea. My professional experience includes both systems work and journalism, and I have been involved with work on the internet for well over a decade.

One important insight from detention work will be governing what I do here. My own experience and motivation for detention work comes from the Catholic tradition as set out in Matthew 25, the corporal works of mercy, and the examples of saints both ancient and modern. When we first went inside, we knew that Jesus was there strongly in an special way for both of us, and that we would be coming back as much as we could.

But that is my perspective. No matter what religious group you come from, as a volunteer you are a guest of the prison adminstration, the correctional officers, and the inmates. If you are a chaplain, your pay comes from the administration, not from your faith community. There are few things quite as ugly as a fight inside driven by bigotry, including religious bigotry. Inside, we all work together, no matter who we represent, or how our various faith communities disagree on the outside. This is not out of some kind of fuzzy ecumenical sentiment, but from hard ecumenical reality -- everyone who does detention work faces the same challenges, and those we serve have to deal with the same situation, without respect to their beliefs. This extends to everyone involved in the justice and correctional systems, including prison staff, victims, as well as inmates and their families.

That's about it at this point. I will be posting a link to this and other similar posts on the right, and will update this as it seems necessary.

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