EDUCATION

ADULT SPIRITUAL EXPLORATION

Journeys
Sundays, 9:45 am, Religious Education Office

Are you interested in connecting more deeply with folks at First Jefferson?
Visitors and newcomers are welcome to join members and friends as we explore meaningful topics each Sunday morning. We seek to deepen our own self-understanding and foster closeness and connectedness.

Adult Forum/HUUmanist Meeting
Sundays, 9:45 am, Jaggers Parlor

HUUmanist Meeting
May 11 at 9:45 am, Jaggers Parlor Joan Carey, "The role of Poetry in our lives" You are invited to bring your favorite poem to share. Poetry has been described as "the maximum meaning in the fewest words."

Keep our ongoing HUU Projects in - mind

1. Support the Central Park 5.

2. Work for the "Ten-Ten" minimum wage.

Youths and teens, don't let the "adult" in Adult Forum fool you. Any week in which there is no class or curriculum for you to attend, you are welcome to participate in adult forum. Some of the topics might interest you.

Mass Incarceration Discussion Group
Meets the first Sunday of the month, after Potluck (12:45pm), Library
Atty. Mike Ware in concerned about people who are innocent but go to prison anyway. Apparently this happens more than one would think. Mike made a power point presentation to our group on Sun. April 6 with true life stories of people that proved his point. How does this happen? Part of the problem seems to have grown out of the mind of John E. Reid who invented a way to obtain confessions called the Reid Technique that is now used by investigators in private industry, law enforcement and the Federal government. "Insights in to the criminal mind play an important role in understanding interrogation utilizing the Reid Technique", says their literature. Never mind that most of the people questioned are not criminals - but after being subjected to the Reid Technique they just may end up with a felony! The process does not involve rubber hoses but rather a long complicated psychological regimen that plays with the mind and is very effecting in eliciting confessions. Unfortunately, the technique is so good that it often obtains confessions from innocent people!
Confessions and eye witness identifications, Atty. Ware told us, are the two main things given the most weight by juries. Even if a suspect was not near the crime scene and can prove it, that proof can be overruled in jurors minds by a confession or an identification. Another problem re convictions of the innocent has to do with prosecutors who do not always work in the interest of justice, but rather in the interest of obtaining convictions.
So it seems mass incarceration has many intricate causes!

Reason with Sensitivity

First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church