My parents have been spending
time in the slammer. They are both approaching 80, are upstanding
citizens, but in any given month, they might average two weekends
in the joint. A while back, I decided to join them.
That
particular weekend they were at the Honor Farm in Riverton, Wyo.
They specialize in Wyoming institutions — Lusk, Newcastle,
Laramie, among others. Most visits involve a three-hour drive, but
Riverton is close to their Lander home.
We showed up
early Saturday morning, checked in, and were ushered to a
conference room near the prison library. Soon the prisoners started
filing in, 11 men in jeans and T-shirts. Some of them had been in
prison for 25 years, others a year or less. We all sat in a circle.
The mood was guarded.
My mother started by introducing
the program, Alternatives to Violence. She’s been conducting
workshops, often with my father, for more than a dozen years.
After she finished, she asked people to introduce
themselves with an “adjective name.” Hers was Swell Chel. The men
tentatively, somewhat sheepishly, spoke up. Careful Craig,
Realistic Roadie, Fast Felix, Jolly Ollie. Names they would carry
for the weekend. A silly exercise, in one sense, but the beginning
of breaking down barriers, the first chink in the wall.
The Alternatives to Violence Program began in Greenhaven Prison in
New York state. In 1975, a group of prisoners known as the Think
Tank, asked a local Quaker group for help in nonviolence training
to prepare them for work as counselors for under-age offenders.
What emerged was a program that evolved into a carefully
thought-out set of exercises and training aimed at stopping violent
reactions and violent behavior. The idea grew, mostly by word of
mouth, to 40 states and 20 countries, and it’s staffed
completely on a volunteer basis.
Although its main thrust
has been prison work, training has expanded to battered women’s
homes, homeless shelters, law enforcement groups and community
mediation centers. Despite its ties to Quakers, the program is
non-sectarian and carries no religious message.
“We have
learned a tremendous amount about ourselves,” my parents told me.
“These are lessons we all need to be reminded of.”
In
Riverton, the session incorporated role-playing, discussion,
team-based challenges and brainstorming, all focused on gaining new
approaches to conflict.
Between the serious stuff, goofy
activities called, “light and livelies” break things up. In one,
the group stands in a circle and throws small, stuffed animals back
and forth at greater and greater speed. Within minutes the group of
felons had disintegrated into a giggling bunch of kids. Saturday
was a 12-hour day, broken up only by meals, head counts and smoke
breaks. Just before lunch, everyone shared their greatest fears.
“I’m most afraid that I’ll never leave prison,” said
Realistic Roadie, who began serving time at 15. Careful Craig said
his biggest fear was dying in a gutter, a needle in his arm.
There were role-playing sessions that cut close to the
bone. Fast Felix confronted a father who had been out of prison for
a year and hadn’t bothered to look up his son. In others, men
role-played job interviews where they had to explain their criminal
past, or negotiated daily chores with a girlfriend after release,
or talked to their sons about what constitutes a good man.
Once, during a heated discussion, an inmate known as
Climbing Cliff burst out, “This isn’t our life! This isn’t who we
are! There’s a door we’ll all walk through one day where we can
take these skills.” Every man in the circle was nodding his head. I
felt a chill go down my spine.
The Sunday workshop was no
less intense. It became clear that despite living in confinement
together, these men knew each other only superficially. The
opportunity to talk on a deeper level had a palpable effect on the
group.
By the end of the workshop, the men who had begun
with their shields raised were listening intently, jumping in with
their thoughts and ideas. The day ended with a graduation ceremony.
We stood in a tight circle. Each man’s name, including mine, was
called. We walked up, shook hands with everyone, held our
certificates with surprising pride.
Afterwards some of
the prisoners hung around. Several volunteered to be trained as
“inside” facilitators. Others talked about what it meant to have
outsiders come in without any agenda.
For me, it was the
words, “This is not our life!” that kept echoing in my head all the
way back to my free life in Montana.
Alan
Kesselheim is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of
High Country News (hcn.org). He lives and writes
in Bozeman, Montana.
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