Jim Bloss also sought prison reforms

Published 1:30 am Thursday, September 5, 2024

Jim Bloss received excellent recognition of his many attributes in article written by Ta’Leah Van Sistine (“Monroe climate and mental halth advocate Jim Bloss dies at 83,” The Herald, Aug. 29).

When writing about a person with as many talents as Jim one is bound to leave out significant parts of his record. Jim advocated for restorative justice. He told about our prisons changing their mission from penalizing offenders to reforming them about 1900.

Unfortunately, this has not been accomplished. Jim pointed out that neither survivors of crime, nor their offenders are helped much by today’s prison systems. Restorative justice is needed. If the criminal justice system were developed and administered by survivors and their offenders both would agree on most things and the system would be characterized by accountability, safety, justice and healing. It would look very little like our present-day prisons.

Incarceration does not consistently deliver safety and almost never heals the survivors nor the offenders. America is the world’s leader in incarceration at 748 per 100,000 population, Russia’s next at 559, Spain, 156; Canada, 117; Germany, 87 and Japan, 58.

Jim was a member of “One Parish, One Prisoner (OPOP)” which proposes that if each church in the state would become a shepherd for each person being released from prison the rate of returning to crime would be reduced. He also advocated in various parts of our government for reform of our prison systems to be instruments of restorative justice. May Jim’s hopes be realized.

Richard Guthrie

Snohomish