Could the mindfulness of yoga be a key to prison reform and reduced crime rates?
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I journeyed into my first yoga class a few years ago during a rough patch in my life. I suffered a death in the family and a major job loss within days of each other. Both events shook my world and left me depressed, emotionally drained, and angry. Luckily, my initial yoga experience stuck. That was in 2006, and I have never looked back.
One day while resting after a yoga class, the instructor mentioned that she was a Yoga Behind Bars volunteer. A light went off: I had to know more about the organization. I did some research and discovered a group of fiercely dedicated, intelligent activists who truly believe yoga changes lives, that it can benefit anyone — even convicted criminals.
Even convicted criminals — languishing in overcrowded prisons, paying for their mistakes and doing their time — deserve an occasional moment of bliss. In fact, I soon discovered yoga is increasingly gaining traction behind guard towers and razor wire.
Corrections officials from Tennessee to Louisiana say that yoga can lead incarcerated people on a path to self discovery and healing.
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In New Mexico, for example, prison authorities in May launched a yoga and mindfulness program, calling it an “inmate safety” measure. Corrections officials from Tennessee to Louisiana say that yoga can lead incarcerated people on a path to self discovery and healing. In California’s notorious San Quentin State Prison, the Prison Yoga Project has been steadily growing for 14 years. When he was released earlier this year, a man who served 19 years for killing a fellow teenager opened a yoga studio in the heart of Chicago’s West Side.
In the United Kingdom, a charity called the Prison Phoenix Trust brings yoga and meditation into about eighty prisons. In India, inmates can earn credits to reduce their sentences by taking yoga classes.
Prison yoga isn’t new. It even made an appearance in the women’s prison-centered Netflix series Orange is the New Black. Inmate “Yoga Jones” taught classes to fellow prisoners. What is new is the acceptance of the notion that yoga’s benefits — such as improving relaxation — are good for everyone.
Seattle-based Yoga Behind Bars is one of the most innovative prison yoga start-ups. The non-profit provides free yoga classes inside prisons, jails, and centers for incarcerated teens. Volunteer Y.B.B. teachers boldly provide hundreds of free yoga classes inside Monroe Correctional Complex, Washington Corrections Center for Women, Echo Glen Children’s Center and King County Jail.
When asked why she cared about prisoners, Natalie Cielle(Smith), a dedicated yoga practitioner and co-founder of Y.B.B., told me once that
“we are all connected; we’re not isolated lumps of flesh.”
I can dig her nod to multiple spiritual traditions. From my own personal experience, I also know that somehow yoga produces results. It does this, in part, by exercising tension and stress out of the body, liberating the mind to experience a calmer state.
Turns out it isn’t hard to convince people that yoga is beneficial. It is a bit harder to convince some that convicts deserve that benefit. Some people (including some crime victims) feel that prison life should be nonstop punishment. But most prisoners will be returning to their communities — even convicted killers — and they will need coping skills to live peacefully on the outside.
In prison, yoga classes are optional. Only inmates interested in healing and health seek them out. In prisons where yoga is offered, there are waiting lists to get in.
Yoga can begin the shift from punishment to rehabilitation, Rosa Vissers, Y.B.B. executive director, said in her compassionate TEDx talk in April inside a men’s prison in Washington state.
“Together we can transform prisons into places where people get the tools to cope with the stress and anxiety on the inside and build a bridge toward a better future on the outside,” she said. “We can break the cycle of suffering.”
A weekly yoga class won’t suddenly turn prisons into serene and calm places. However, it’s cheaper and more effective than medications and other mental health interventions.
Researching prison yoga programs I also reached out to a handful of corrections officials. One prison psychologist was particularly enthusiastic about yoga’s benefits for mental health. He insists yoga aids in the treatment of psychopathology, drug addiction, and even criminality.
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Changing negative thoughts and behaviors that underlie criminal activity seems to me like a pretty good reason to support prison yoga. These programs need help to survive. It takes some resources for them to keep going: gas money, for instance, for teachers to get to the prisons (often remotely located). You can find more information about how to get involved or support Yoga Behind Bars by clicking the link!
In late May, Y.B.B. received a letter from inmates at Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, Washington:
“There are more than thirty people here that are willing to sign up for a class in yoga and give it everything they have.”
Sadly, for now, due to limited resources, they have to settle for a few used yoga books.
Here is another way to help: go shopping at the gift registry at Amazon listing yoga books still needed for those guys in the lockup in Aberdeen.
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Photo: Matt From London/Flcikr