Prisoner Visitation and Support

Prisoner Visitation and Support (PVS) is the only interfaith, volunteer visitation program authorized by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Defense to visit any prisoner in the Federal and Military prison systems. We were founded in 1968, carrying forward a Quaker tradition of caring for prisoners. Over 300 PVS volunteer visitors see thousands of prisoners a year in 102 federal prisons and 4 military prisons across the nation. No other organization in the U.S. has achieved the same level of access, on a nationwide scale, to the other prison system, and with over 50 years of service, PVS continues to play a unique role in the field of prisoner assistance. 

Our mission is to provide prisoners with regular, face to face contact from the world outside of prison to help them cope with prison life, encourage personal growth, and prepare for successful reentry into society. Volunteer visitors are at the heart of our organization, providing regular face-to-face visits with prisoners in acute need of human contact -- those prisoners without regular visits, those serving long sentences who are far from home, those in solitary confinement and on death row, and those who are frequently transferred from prison to prison.