Insight Prison Project
This last week I did an amazing facilitator training at IPP for the VOEG, Victim Offender Education Group, program. This is a Restorative Justice Program.
I don't know exactly what to say about it. It is one of those experiences that changes one though. I am changed.
The highlight for sure was spending the day in San Quentin Prison with 20 or so Men in Blue, in this case all lifers with the possibility of parole. (The men refer to themselves as Men in Blue. Their prison uniform is light blue.)
The program facilitates these men taking extreme (no other notion is appropriate) responsibility for their crime. The men introduce themselves as Jimmy Smith, I murdered Jane Jones by strangulation, etc. In this program they don't hide behind euphemisms for their crimes.
The significant thing is that the men that have completed this program are living transformed lives, operating at incredible level of emotional maturity. This is visible in how they dealt with us and each other. There may be nothing more humbling that being with hard men operating from open hearts.
The program has been operating for seven years now, and these men report that it is instrumental not only in transforming their lives, but in changing the entire experience of the inmates in the prison.
One of our co-facilitators, Patrick Mims, was one of these men until two years ago. Pat is like a diamond, clear, real, dynamic, loving, world changing, and the same for the other men I met last Wednesday. These men, in or out of prison, will change the world for the better.
The group of folks taking the training with me were the most diverse group of folks I've ever had the honor of spending a week with. We ranged form early 20s to perhaps seventy, white, black, brown. Each of us came for our own reasons, with about half involved in the correctional system. To learn to facilitate the training we had to partake of its elements we shared intimacies never shared before from attempted murder to lies that betrayed a friend. Tears shed by all.
The most endearing scene was our oldest participant a 70ish middle class white woman sitting with a former gang banger at our lunch that day in the prison sharing stories and pictures of his life. The two of them getting to know each other was unbelievably sweet.
I don't know exactly how I will carry this work forward, but I will. It will show up in my coaching and in my men's work without doubt. But there is more, just don't know what it is yet.
I don't know exactly what to say about it. It is one of those experiences that changes one though. I am changed.
The highlight for sure was spending the day in San Quentin Prison with 20 or so Men in Blue, in this case all lifers with the possibility of parole. (The men refer to themselves as Men in Blue. Their prison uniform is light blue.)
The program facilitates these men taking extreme (no other notion is appropriate) responsibility for their crime. The men introduce themselves as Jimmy Smith, I murdered Jane Jones by strangulation, etc. In this program they don't hide behind euphemisms for their crimes.
The significant thing is that the men that have completed this program are living transformed lives, operating at incredible level of emotional maturity. This is visible in how they dealt with us and each other. There may be nothing more humbling that being with hard men operating from open hearts.
The program has been operating for seven years now, and these men report that it is instrumental not only in transforming their lives, but in changing the entire experience of the inmates in the prison.
One of our co-facilitators, Patrick Mims, was one of these men until two years ago. Pat is like a diamond, clear, real, dynamic, loving, world changing, and the same for the other men I met last Wednesday. These men, in or out of prison, will change the world for the better.
The group of folks taking the training with me were the most diverse group of folks I've ever had the honor of spending a week with. We ranged form early 20s to perhaps seventy, white, black, brown. Each of us came for our own reasons, with about half involved in the correctional system. To learn to facilitate the training we had to partake of its elements we shared intimacies never shared before from attempted murder to lies that betrayed a friend. Tears shed by all.
The most endearing scene was our oldest participant a 70ish middle class white woman sitting with a former gang banger at our lunch that day in the prison sharing stories and pictures of his life. The two of them getting to know each other was unbelievably sweet.
I don't know exactly how I will carry this work forward, but I will. It will show up in my coaching and in my men's work without doubt. But there is more, just don't know what it is yet.