“Leaving prison...before you get out”

Jacques Verduin(Rough Draft - Format Test Only)

I do not stand here alone

Please imagine thousands of prisoners standing behind me, their voices amplified in this talk

(alternative slide)

Statistics on violence and prisons

• Violence statistics here

• Prison statistics here

12-14 year old’s sentenced as adults in USA

The “Insight Job” Transformational technology

• The’ “Insight Job”:

Emotional Intelligence

Restorative Justice

Transforming Violence

Mind/Body Awareness

“For us, by us, about us”

Normative Culture: peer education and job certification

Empowering participants to set their own behavioral norms and then see them enforce their collective standards

Result: Radical culture change in San Quentin

“Leaving prison…before you get out”

Viktor Frankl: The last of the human freedoms - The ability to chose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances

We’re all doing time. Freedom is not just a geographical location, as in the other side of the walls. It’s not just where you are; it’s who you are that sets you free..

Personal transformation leads system reform

Curriculum: Circles of men

Original Pain & Secondary Pain

Run, Hide or Face

Sitting in the Fire: The cause and origin of this feeling lies within me. Burning clean and leaving ashes

Moment of Imminent Danger

Mindfulness Training

Emotional Literacy

Violence Prevention; Guiding Rage into Power

Restorative Justice Dialogues:victim/offender meetings

Courts: Just the fact’s, Ma’am

The courts only deal with the facts but do not address the wounds: No healing takes place.

Courts victimize victims, unequal access, racial disparity

“Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us…” Rilke

“Insight Out”

Life-sentenced men working with challenged youth, giving back to communities they once took from

Change Agents restoring the human fabric. What was once a stigma has now become a badge

Reversing the “School to prison pipeline”

The Line Between Good & Evil

• Who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?