Lifers Inc. 

& Men United For A Better Philadelphia Cosponsor Historic Conference

By Junious R. Stanton

Inmates, administration, representatives from the Philadelphia Police Department, various social agencies, victims advocacy groups, and concerned citizens met to discuss and formulate ways the Lifers, ex-offenders, and the community can work together to stem the tide of anti-social, self and community destructive behavior. The members of Lifers Inc. have nothing to gain personally from establishing a prison-community rehabilitation partnership or participating in the programs that will come out of this summit. They are in prison for life. Many have no chance of parole of sentence commutation, yet they do this out of genuine concern for their families and communities. 

Bilal Qayyum, Malik A. Aziz and Wali Smith of Men United For A Better Philadelphia worked with prison Superintendent Donald T. Vaughn and Deputy Superintendent Manuel A. Arroyo and the men of Lifers Inc. for almost a year planning this historic conference. This is the first conference of its kind held in the Pennsylvania Prison system and the nation. The summit was postponed once and recent events seemed to conspire to force another postponement or cancellation, but the administration stepped in and gave their approval and blessing. 

The theme of the conference was "Crime Prevention Summit: Building Partnerships." Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson was the morning keynote speaker. He brought with him several upper level police department personnel who remained and participated in the all day conference. The objective of the conference was to establish effective partnerships uniting to reduce the recidivism rate amongst returning ex-offenders, train an ongoing cadre of ex-offender as street workers who work with Men United For A Better Philadelphia doing grass roots, street level intervention with the young men in the community to channel and redirect their energies into pro-social activities and dissuade them from engaging in criminal activities. The Lifers will train the inmates returning to the community in what they call the "Malcolm X paradigm" of personal transformation and community involvement.

Bilal A. Qayyum one of the planners shared the process. "We've been working on this for about eight to ten months. Our goal it to build a collaboration between the Lifers, Men United, work with the brothers that are in prison that will be coming out. The bridge will be the Lifers who will work with the men before they come out and then we'll work with them once they come out. If a man knows he'll be getting out in say six months, the Lifers will start working with them along with the administration. We'll know when they'll be coming out and we can work with them when they get out." 

He explained the involvement of the various groups and agencies. "PAAN, the police, elected officials, ex-offenders, the Masons, Local 332, some fraternities, Town Watch have been a part of us since day one. The purpose of Men United is very focused and simple. We're a coalition group to reduce violence in the city of Philadelphia." 

Ray Jones a M.U.F.B.P. community worker explained how the process will work. "We're going to integrate the young men who are suggested by the Lifers who are preparing to get out, to work with us. We expect that to happen within the next thirty to sixty days. They'll give us a list of those about to come out or those who are in half-way houses now and we're going to put them on the street corners with us, and in school based projects talking to all male classes. Third, they're going to be part of our ongoing think tank, if you will, in terms of how do we tweak some of the projects we're doing and how do we better enhance what they're doing here in the prison. This is an ongoing long term project."

After the morning session, in the chapel, lunch was served in an adjoining cafeteria. Following lunch, workshops were conducted in the education building. Workshop topics included Community Safety, Substance Abuse Prevention and Education, Economic Empowerment, Recovering Victims-Community and Ex-offenders, Youth Crime and Violence and Community Reintegration. After the workshops the attendees reconvened to present summaries of what took place in the various workshops. The conference ended on an exhilarating note of co-operation, positivity and expectancy. M.U.F.B.P., Lifers Inc. and the administration committed to doing the conference on an ongoing basis. 

Superintendent Donald T. Vaughn shared his enthusiasm for working with Lifers Inc. "Most people would ask what do lifers have to do with anti-crime? Well they recognize there is a need and they want to give something back, they have something to offer. They can help the organizations recognize because they came from the same backgrounds of the problems that they are having with the drug addiction, the street gangs because all of them have some type of involvement that brought them in this direction. So it's been a positive endeavor for them. They have made a major turnaround since they have been incarcerated. I don't have problems with Lifers, once they arrive and they recognize the reason they have been incarcerated, the time that they've received, they take on a positive approach to try to give back something that they know they have taken away."

In addition to working with soon-to-be released inmates, M.U.F.B.P. and Lifers Inc. also have created several other outreach programs: Project Life-Line a program similar to Sacred Straight designed to work with at risk males fifteen years old and PLAY Prisoners Letters And Youth and literacy and poetry development program for at-risk males. 

For more information about Men United For A Better Philadelphia and their Lifers Inc. partnership call Bilal Qayyum at (215) 683-2092.

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 updated 28 March 2008