I come back from the Pe Sakastew centre at Hobbema tired but refreshed. In 48 hours, a nervous and suspicious group of inmates, most of them doing time for crimes involving drugs, alcohol and violence, has turned into a collection of friends: open, sharing, and above all, filled with self-confidence and good humor.

How has it all come about?

It's a process that started twenty-five years ago, when inmates in a New York prison asked a group of Quakers how they could deal with the impulses to violence that until then had ruined their lives. The answer to that question was a three-day, "hands on" course, which explored the roots of violence, and by a series of talks, exercises and role plays, gave participants the practical ability to resolve conflict in an effective and non-violent manner. The course proved so successful that it spread across the United States and into Canada; eventually, it found its way to New Zealand, Cuba, Uganda, and many countries of Europe. Not always is it in prisons, but also in communities and schools.

A miracle? Hardly. It only seems so because most of us have such a misconception in our minds as to what criminality is all about. The popular idea is that some persons much different from ourselves (those in jail) are criminals, who deserve to have their lives made unpleasant for them in order to make them "straighten up", and the rest of us (those not in jail) are not. Too few of us have dared to muse, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Go back to the most primitive level of the mind - which humans share with many other living creatures. If we meet others on the basis of trust, as we do within our families, we will act in one of three ways.

• We will give nurture to others, as parents do to children.
• We will seek nurture from others, as children do from parents and teachers.
• We will cooperate constructively with others, as parents do, and as should be the case in any harmonious society. No criminality in any of the above!

On the other hand, if we have reason to face another person in fear, we make three different choices.

• We may fight.
• We may run away - sometimes through the tools of drink and drugs.
• We may unwillingly submit - in which case, a secret part of us will always seek to escape and get revenge.

To end criminal behaviour, therefore, we need to make it possible for potential criminals to create around themselves an atmosphere of trust rather than fear. In that way they will use the first three of these six behaviours, rather than the others.

Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) courses start by creating this environment, in which everyone who participates feels valued and secure. Violence is not allowed anywhere. Participants must volunteer because they want to improve their lives. The course gives no "Brownie points" towards a parole hearing. It is presented by volunteers. These things are essential for the spirit the course engenders.

Usually, twelve to sixteen participants gather round in a circle, and there are three or four facilitators. Basic ground rules are laid down at the outset to ensure the physical and emotional safety of participants.

• No one may criticize himself or anyone else on the course.
• No one may interrupt a person who is speaking.
• Confidentiality is to be observed outside the group.
• No one will volunteer anyone else for any job to be done.
• Everyone has the right to "pass" if he does not want to participate in a particular session.

• First is Affirmation -exercises to enable every participant to think of himself in a positive and creative way.
• Second is Communication: exercises that give practice in conveying and receiving messages from others, not just in words, but also in body language, understanding feelings and the like.
• Third is Community Building - learning to work with others on a common project: the projects are designed to contain a certain amount of frustration and challenge to creativity, bewildering, perhaps, at first, but reflecting the many real problems we encounter in life.
• Fourth is actual practice in Conflict Resolution. This involves dramatic role-plays dealing with various real or imaginary situations, which are "debriefed" in considerable detail. Interspersed with all of the above, at the end of every session is a completely crazy "Light and Lively" game, followed by a serious evaluation of how the session went. This shakes us all up, empowers the participants with the right to provide input, and give facilitators guidance to improve the course in the future.

• First: "Think before reacting".
• Second: "Expect the best".
• Third: "Work for the win-win solution".

• "Respect Yourself" and
• "Care about Others".

Those who complete the course are invited to go to a "second level", where specific problems chosen by the group are addressed, and dealt with in greater depth - itself an exercise in coming to a constructive group decision. Beyond this, those who wish to become facilitators take a "training for trainers" course, after which they may begin as apprentice facilitators on the regular course.

Although the program originates from a religious community, there is no specifically religious component. Just the same, it is not hard to see in the elements of the medallion the qualities of faith, hope and charity, and love of God, self and neighbour, that lie at the center of all the great world religions.

What I have received from the course, both as student and teacher, is a much greater sensitivity to violence in many areas of society where at first we do not recognize it. The prison system in itself is violent. In addition, many aspects of our compulsory schooling, our medical techniques, our ways of parenting, our economic and political systems, our workplace, our armed forces and foreign policies, even our tax structure, reflect the same attitude of violence, with the same psychological results of fight, flight, or hostile, evasive and short term submission on the part of those affected.

We are at the beginning of a new millennium, looking for new directions for a kinder and gentler society. Perhaps one thing we need to do is to examine the use we all make of violence to maintain social structures that may well be due for overhaul. It may just be that, by basing so much of our civilization on fear, we have deserved the violence we have reaped from it. It doesn't have to be that way.
İ 1999 J.M.Hattersley - martinh@ecn.ab.ca

This article was published in "Birthrights", Fall 2000.

A few weeks ago I found myself sitting in a class at Harvard Divinity School listening to a white professor bemoan the fact that two black professors were leaving the school. As a racially mixed class, we thought strategically about how we could influence the white committee responsible for hiring future professors. My mind wandered back twenty-four hours.

The day before I was in prison. There was no dearth of black men there.

I sat in a circle with three other outsiders and twenty men serving long sentences. It was Sunday and our third day together. The weekend theme was stereotyping and racism. As hard as these issues are, community had formed, trust had been built, and we chose to acknowledge our progress by coming together to worship in a circle.

Our first song, sung every year as part of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, spoke of how the Native Americans hid and freed runaway slaves. Then we shared with one another parts of ourselves and one another that are not free. One black man in his sixties spoke of having lost his deep Baptist roots and of his desire to reconnect with his Maker. Joe, who was released from prison after twenty years only to be re-incarcerated on a parole technicality, spoke of his loss of hope and his desire to find the will and strength to carry on. Nick, a young, published, black poet read his poem on a friendship, developed in secret, between a black child and a white child in the post-Civil War South. John read a letter, written in poetic form, he had sent to his friend who was struggling with his wifeıs long-term cocaine addiction.

Finally, with makeshift percussion instruments, we stood and sang the black spiritual "Wade in the Water". Many of the men could not sing. It was not that they didn't know how to sing or that they didn't know the song; rather, they had lost their voices. Like the Israelites in the 137th Psalm, they seemed to hang up their harps and ask God, "How can we sing, sing the Lordıs song, in a foreign land?" The song ended, inmates disappeared to wipe tears, to gain their composure.

This weekend we were spending together was one of hundreds of Alternatives To Violence Project weekends which take place throughout the world. AVPıs goal is to reduce the level of violence in society by providing workshops in conflict resolution. As each weekend culminates, Sunday afternoon is spent creating and performing debriefing role-plays. The role-plays give us a chance to take on aspects of ourselves, of our companions and of society, which often remain unconscious and hidden.

In one role-play, I was the black girlfriend of a white man. The scene took place in a black bar in my neighborhood. My brother almost killed my boyfriend and I found myself between two men I loved dearly. My brother was all too willing to knife my boyfriend to prove his turf and establish his power over one who symbolized all my brother had been subjected to as a black man in a white manıs world.

In another role-play, a prison chaplain played an Irish cop but much to the horror and dismay of us all, his true bigotry spewed from his depths. My black inmate co-facilitator on that weekend resignedly reneged on his responsibility to process that role-play as he had to deal with this chaplain on a daily basis in prison. After leaving the prison, the other white facilitators and I asked that the volunteer organization that sponsored this chaplain speak with him and his superiors. We were told not to trouble the waters.

In yet another role-play, a white Southern friend of mine played a CEO forced to meet racial hiring quotas. We were all dismayed as we watched the inmates, who played themselves, interview poorly. They came to prison with few skills and had not been given any while there. Only one in ten inmates in the United States receives substantial rehabilitative programming.

I was dumfounded for throughout the weekend there had been no overt, let alone covert, examples of racism or racial tension. We all sat together, worked together, and engaged with one another. So much so that these men risked telling us just how bad it was out there in the "camp"; so much so that these men risked talking about it with one another.

There was a profound sadness in our midst. We knew, magically, we had all experienced 20 hours together where, as we played, debated, wrestled with concepts, and practiced new behaviors, we were given the grace to fully experience one another as fellow human beings. Now, as the weekend was drawing to a close, we were all going back to the segregated worlds we had created.

Sitting in class at Harvard debating the absence of black faculty took on a surreal quality. Perhaps we need to think about where all those black men are. We, as whites, in power, are systematically relegating them to long prison sentences. One in ten black men in America are in prison. One in seven black men have lost the right to vote. Black men are incarcerated at seven times the rate of white men. Prison is about wasting resources: human lives. This leaves our society shackled and malnourished for we have taken key constituents and locked them away.

Several years ago I founded Partakers. Partakers is a faith-based, not-for-profit organization which strives for reconciliation between prisoners and society. Partakers breaks down the walls which divide prisoners from society by bringing them together and fostering their sense of accountability and responsibility towards one another. It seeks justice through offender and societal commitment to rehabilitation and restorative justice.

Yes, I can go to Harvard and sit in a racially diverse class, but it is a far cry from the richness of diversity I have had the privilege of experiencing in prison. It is only in prison that I am able to fully love and interact with Latinos, blacks, Native Americans, and people from vastly different life circumstances and socioeconomic groups than myself. I am so thankful for this experience, yet I know how warped my gratitude is. For I know I am a contributor to this complex society which creates poverty, oppression and racism.

As I strive to make sense of the senselessness of our unjust criminal justice system, I feel like Moses in the wilderness. Iım at a loss; truly there is no water and the desert is barren. And I wonder, God, why have you allowed your people to be confined in a place which offers no hope, little rehabilitation and daily degradation and humiliation. I trust that somehow this yoke that has been put on me is a yoke of freedom. That what is being imprisoned is my lack of faith, my disbelief in miracles, my small narrow world. I trust we all can grow in our ability to see our prison system for the failure it is and to strive for true criminal justice for all of us.

For me God is a spirit who is in nature and in our hearts. A metaphor for the spirit in our hearts is a flame. I believe just about everyone has a flame inside them, but there are differences on how brightly that flame shines. Some people have been more successful in listening to their inner flame and have grown spiritually, emotionally, and as people. I believe that is why we come to church. We yearn to share as a community and to grow the Inner Light. There is a relationship between those two things. We each have an inner flame, but so too does our neighbor sitting next to us, so too do prisoners sitting in jail. We grow by nurturing the flame in ourselves and in our neighbors. We grow by sharing.

For a long time I've believed that doing good works (as opposed to simply writing checks for good causes) is an important part of our mission on earth as people of God. But I've not felt that I've had the time or more importantly that I've had a gift to share. When I joined the First Parish community 7 years ago, I was quick to volunteer my accounting talents and to become church treasurer. But to actually do mission work, oh no.

Some months ago Jeannette Hanlon came to our church and described various prison programs she was involved in. Sounded interesting, but not for me-what would I have to offer? Cindy and Susan Stoddard did the Alternative to Violence Project weekend and came back with rave reviews. Sounded great! But not for me, I'm not really a people person. What would I have to give?

Gradually, over time, I began to listen to my inner flame telling me: "you need to take the courage to live your faith, to push your personal envelope, to grow as a person, to share the gifts of compassion and caring that you do have, you won't be sorry if you do". I came to realize that I was talking my faith but not necessarily living it. I reached inside myself, mustered the courage, and finally said yes. That for me was the most difficult part. The rest was easy.

Brendan and I went to the medium security prison in Gardner last Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday for the Alternatives to Violence program. We met in a meeting room with 2 outside facilitators, 3 inmate facilitators, and roughly 15 inmates taking the course for the first time. All of us were a little stiff and uncomfortable until we played some ice breaking games. I was truly amazed at how quickly the barriers began to drop and people began to open up. I can't imagine that even in a faith community like FP we could open up so quickly to share our personal hopes and fears. We were all sharing, me, middle class, middle aged white, along with young, old, black, Hispanic, white, Muslim, Christian, no particular faith. One of the first exercises we did Friday evening was to go around the room and share what you wanted to get out of the program.

Again I was blown away by the enthusiasm of the inmates in identifying and listing the root causes and the fruits of violence and non-violence. It quickly became clear that the tree of non-violence became the one to aspire to if only they could just find the right techniques to get there. So Saturday and Sunday morning are spent discussing various techniques. The answers come from the inmates and there are no right answers or wrong answers. Not once during the weekend did the facilitators "correct" something the inmates said. It's not that they had it "right" every time, it's that they need to discern the truth themselves. There were numerous inmates who struck a responsive chord with me. As we got to know each other better over the weekend my impressions would change. One inmate initially struck me as quiet and a little non-responsive, but in one-on-one discussions I came to realize he had an incredible depth of compassion. I would like to think he will be able to draw on that inner depth to succeed, but who knows. In another case my initial impression was that the inmate had maturity and a connection to God that would stand him well. Through out the weekend this inmate had been saying how important his faith was. Towards the end, he volunteered that once he got out he was going straight to church to give thanks to the Lord and to receive grace from his savior. Then he was going to get high, undoubtedly get in trouble and this being his fourth time that would mean he would remain in prison for the rest of his life. Needless to say my jaw dropped in disbelief and disappointment. It was hard not to jump in and try to "straighten" him out. Everyone in the room, including the inmate himself, was reflecting on what was said.

For that short weekend we had created an environment of caring, affirmation, and authentic sharing. All of the inmates were genuinely grateful: they let us know many times over! I would like to think we were able to help them turn up their inner flames enough to give them the strength to make it on their own. What Brendan and I did was not heroic or special. We simply shared as one authentic human being to another. I think I received far more than I brought. Certainly I walked away with more compassion in my heart than I came with. If I helped inmates to grow, they certainly helped me. Everyone is capable of living their faith by contributing to God's handiwork some small way, whether it be the Alternatives to Violence Project or something else. For those like me who are hesitating, I hope my reflection has helped give you the courage to act. Believe me, the rest is easy.

I am a 23-year old white woman, college-educated and now attending Harvard Divinity School. Some of them are younger than 23, most are older. Some of them are white; however, most are Hispanic or African-American. Some of them may have experienced college; most did not.

In two days I would be driving home to Pennsylvania, where I would spend a month preparing for my wedding in August. In two days they would be rising again for count, staring at their collimate in their room/toilet, and going through the motions once again.

I would be welcomed at home, taken out for dinner, and would be preaching in my home church- an affirmation of my dream toward ordination. If they received a visit, they would be fortunate. They more likely would receive denials of their humanity, and no interest in their dreams.

Between educational loans and a part-time job, I pay the rent and live comfortably. They may be soon living only through the charity of half-way houses, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters.

I can look forward to being ordained, becoming a leader of a church and a community, and earning enough to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. They can look forward to employment rejections, the sting of the category "ex-con," an overextended parole officer who cannot or perhaps will not help with employment possibilities, and the never-ceasing accusations of an unforgiving society.

I could have written most of this before entering Shirley Prison, MA, for an Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) weekend. I could have used what I heard about prison life to list the differences between myself and those in prison. And after talking with an inmate for only a short time, I would probably have been able to list what he faced everyday and what he would face upon his release.

Yet, even as my first experience spending over 16 hours with inmates defined the many differences between us, it also gave me something deeper and in some respects, more surprising. "They," the incarnated, the criminals, the inmates-they were not, in any way, a distinct breed of Homo Sapiens, who would always be the static "criminal." It was "they" that emerged during this weekend into distinctive and changing personalities. When I try to describe the group of 25 men with whom I shared a weekend, I cannot find one adjective to describe their collective personalities. Some were extremely friendly, some reserved; some were still angry, some were past that point; some had love, and some desperately needed anyone to give them love. With each day, people changed. They became less skeptical or maybe more skeptical; they became less distrustful of the outsiders, and then showed some anger. Regardless of the change in their personalities, not one inmate remained in a static mode throughout the weekend.

I have no doubt that the dynamism of their personalities is not constrained to an AVP weekend. Over their years in prison, they have changed, either positively or negatively, as we all do in everyday society.

Yet it is the outsiders who are taught by society to see prison as a place where this change does not occur. We are taught to perceive prison as a place for the "protection of the outside society," where we can hide away all "dangers" and "animals" and anything we don't want to face ourselves.

While clearly prisons have, and always will, function to protect society from people who have committed a crime, we cannot limit prisons to this purpose without devastating consequences.

When the main purpose of incarceration is to protect society from those who are dangerous, we create an objectification of the people we sentence to prisons. Instead of understanding the prisoners as dynamic individuals who each have their own story, we see the prisoner as an "it," while we, the outside society, are the "I." The problem inherent here is that the "it" will most likely become free, and in that freedom theoretically become an "I." How does the former prisoner function in this schizophrenic environment? How does he or she carry the identity of an "it" and yet become an "I" with all the freedom and responsibility which this brings?

An advocate against this "I-it" philosophy was Martin Luther King, Jr. Speaking in the context of segregation, he pointed out that no matter if a person is white or black, this person is a human being. Incarcerated or free, a person can never be an "it." To deal with a person as an "it," King said, "is to depersonalize the potential person and desecrate what he is. . . [as long as the person] is treated as a means to an end, so long as he is seen as anything less than a person of sacred worth, the image of God is abused in him and consequently and proportionately lost by those who inflict the abuse."

Through observing and interacting with these 25 incarnated men during this AVP weekend, I rebelled against the "I-it" attitude and began to see each personality as dynamic. We talked at lunch, sharing stories about our hobbies, relatives, or the outcome of the NBA finals. Playing games together, we learned how to laugh at each other and ourselves, appreciating a time to relax. One-on-one, we each talked about who our hero is, what our goal in life is, and how we understand our positive qualities. We learned the importance of working together, making quick decisions, representative of the entire group, and saw how we could work without verbal or visual contact. Without judgments, accusations, or revenge, we expressed our feelings and learned how to use "transforming power" to turn negative feelings into positive, hopeful attitudes. The AVP weekend provided a bridge for us, so that at the end I could scarcely separate myself from the inmates in my group.

Howard Thurman, a 20th century theologian, preacher, and mystic, once wrote that wholeness comes from accepting the following statement: "They, as part of us, have done this to us." He says that the inability to separate oneself from another person comes about when we realize that all life is one. [Then it is possible to understand another become of the hope I have of understanding myself.] We grew in this way during the AVP weekend, better understanding ourselves and our stories, and finally understanding the stories of others. The roots of violence in me may be those of my brother or sister. The roots of non-violence that take hold in me may also take hold in my new brothers and sisters. Sharing the same humanity, we have the freedom to change. And now, sharing each other's lives, we have the responsibility to change.