Biography
Norman Edgar Lowry Jr. is a Pennsylvania peace activist and former urban-ministry chaplain who repeatedly protested military recruitment at the Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Lancaster. After a January 14, 2010 trespass arrest, he remained in Lancaster County Prison until June 26, 2011. He returned to the recruiting office on August 1, 2011, blocked its entrance and again refused bail. Judge Louis Farina sentenced him on May 21, 2012 to one to seven years for criminal trespass, offering earlier parole if Lowry promised to stop blocking military recruiting offices. Lowry refused that condition and remained imprisoned until the maximum expiration of his sentence on August 31, 2018.
In his first-person “Prisoner of Conscience” essay, published from Camp Hill in September 2012, Norman Lowry describes an earlier phase mostly spent in Lancaster County Prison and a later phase in the state-prison system. The issue lists the historical state-prison identifier KN 9758. It gives no exact transfer day or complete institution-by-institution custody timeline.
Norman Lowry was released from the state prison in Dallas, Pennsylvania on August 1, 2018 after his imprisonment for repeated protests at a Lancaster military recruiting office. The contemporary report explicitly corrects earlier editions that mistakenly added thirty days to his release date. His recorded August 1, 2011 admission and corrected August 1, 2018 release span 2,557 elapsed days. His earlier, separate stays remain distinct. Source: The Nuclear Resister No.189, September 1, 2018, printed page 3.
Physical release on June 27, 2011
The contemporary report states that Norman Lowry physically left custody on Monday, June 27, 2011 after his second recruiting-office protest imprisonment. His statement dates the protest to January 15, 2010, while the exact intake day remains unresolved. The release date is distinct from his later August 2011 return to custody. Contemporary report and Lowry’s statement.
