THE TABLET, May 3rd 2003 - Yoga in prison
by Shirley Lancaster
Britain’s prisons house a higher proportion of the population than anywhere in Europe. The Prison Phoenix Trust applies spiritual remedies.
THINGS were not quite normal when we arrived at Blakenhurst prison, near Worcester. The senior officer, Paul Kitson, explained there was a “lock-up” that morning (all prisoners confined to cells) as he led us through a series of locked gates in the metal fencing that towered above us – surrounded by a huge perimeter wall. Inside this modern redbrick prison, with over 800 inmates, it was eerily quiet.
Two days earlier Steven Wilson – known to the public as the man who telephoned his wife to say he was killing their two sons, and then stabbed himself – had been found in his cell hanging from an upturned bed by his shoe laces. A second prisoner hanged himself later the same day.
So a workshop on yoga and meditation given by the Prison Phoenix Trust suddenly seems irrelevant. The female officer who frisks us, and examines the trust’s daffodil, candle, incense stick and meditation bell, probably thinks the same.
Kitson, head of the Voluntary Drug Unit, makes us welcome. Blakenhurst is one of the few prisons to offer yoga and meditation as an accredited course in its education programme. The Prison Phoenix Trust now runs 102 classes for prisoners and 13 groups for prison officers throughout Britain and offers regular support to teachers.
Kitson unlocks a room which is clean, airy and laid out with mats. Sandy, director of the trust, and Meg, her deputy, place their flowers in the centre of the room, light the candle and incense and display their books against the wall. Meg draws a large circle on a display board. The first few men wander in. Sandy and Meg shake hands and introduce themselves. They ask simple questions: “How are you doing? How do you sleep?” I introduce myself to Jamie, about 20, who looks fragile. I ask him if he’s ever done yoga. “No, miss”, he replies politely and falls silent.
Thankfully Reggie walks in. With closely shaven head and wide-boy looks, he confidently tells me he got interested in yoga when he was in Wormwood Scrubs for two years. Pointing to a book We’re All Doing Time (a streetwise guide to spiritual growth), he says, “This book really helped when I was down”. (The author, Bo Lozoff, pioneered spiritual practice in prisons in the United States, and his correspondence with prisoners makes gritty, inspiring reading; the Prison Phoenix Trust sends out free copies to interested prisoners, along with Becoming Free through Meditation and Yoga, co-authored by Sandy Chubb and Sr Elaine McInnes, Catholic nun and past director.) Reggie, soon to be released, tells me he has set aside a room in his house for meditation and wants his wife to take it up.
After chatting with everyone, Meg begins by explaining what meditation does. “Think how it feels when you’re really involved in something – like watching your team score a goal, riding a motorbike or walking in nature. We feel what it’s like really to live in the present, being at one with ourselves.” Most of the time we’re full of thoughts, fears, regrets, she explains. “Meditation is a way of controlling all the rubbish that fills our heads.” There are a few shuffles, a wide yawn from Jamie, but everyone is listening.
“We all experience something inside us that is not our will, emotions, or intellect but something else”, Meg continues. She asks if anyone can suggest a word for that part of us. Reggie says “soul”. Mark, sitting beside me, suggests “spirit”.
“Yes”, says Meg, writing them on the board, “another word might be God or even black hole.” Meditation helps us experience more of that part of us, she explains. We can find peace, a rest place from our busy minds.
Sandy now reminds us we have to free our bodies of tension before we can relax our minds. “Our bodies have an amazing capacity to heal whatever abuse we have inflicted on them”, she tell us. She encourages us to feel the ground through our bare feet. A few more socks come off and we can smell each other’s feet amid the incense. As she talks us through the yoga positions, everyone tries them. Some breathe heavily through a painful stretch, others wobble on one leg: no one wants to hold on to the wall. The session ends in silent meditation – apart from the sound of jangling keys unlocking and relocking doors in the corridor.
Sandy asks the group if they want to share any reactions. An Afro-Caribbean prisoner, Richard, says he found it “different”.
Mark, who suffers from nightmares, tells me afterwards he found the exercises helpful. “I’ve always hit out at people”, he confides. He lasted just a few hours at one prison because he hit an officer; he was put in solitary for his violent behaviour at another prison. He was convicted for putting a man in a wheelchair after he was set upon by four thugs, one wielding an axe. He shows me the scar. But things are different now. He is able to stay in control. He is having acupuncture and feeling the benefit. “I won’t be getting into trouble because I’m not letting Kitson down.”
David, who was shaking during the exercises, now looks remarkably relaxed. He thought the standing exercise was hard but enjoyed the rest. John, a slight 50-something, says he has a paid job on another wing and is eager to get back to it.
Over a buffet lunch I ask the Catholic chaplain, John Gilbert, what he thinks of the workshop. “Not all chaplains approve, but I have no problems with it.” At two nearby prisons he often meditates on a Bible text with inmates, but agrees prisoners may feel more open to yoga and meditation when they do not use religious language.
The prisoners who have completed the 30-week accreditation course are the Prison Phoenix Trust’s best advertisement. Giorgio, sentenced for manslaughter, hands me his course folder and proudly shows me his two certificates. Ziggy, a South African sentenced for smuggling drugs, compares their daily practice with that of a monk in his cell: it is a physical and spiritual discipline. Both see their remaining two years in prison as an opportunity to further their spiritual practice. They have a goal. Although both have single cells, I ask if they get a lot of abuse from other prisoners. “Yes, especially from the big guys”, says Ziggy. Mark, a gentle man who practises regularly, says: “The best reply is to challenge them to do the exercises. They can’t do them and won’t try because they’re afraid to look silly.”
“We ignore them”, says Giorgio, “and support each other – though getting transferred to another prison without a yoga teacher makes some people give up”.
So does it work? Are recidivism rates any different? Alan says prisoners sometimes sit on the steps and do not want to be released because they know they will get sucked back into the drug scene. In Birmingham drugs are rife: 70 per cent of all prisoners admitted to Blakenhurst test positively. “They’re a free meal ticket”, says Alan. With figures that show that 58 per cent of prisoners reoffend within two years, the officers know many prisoners will be back.
When I ask Giorgio, Ziggy and Mark how they heard about yoga and meditation, they say they noticed certain inmates had a calm about them and they wanted to know how to be like that. For Sandy Chubb, “the practice of silence is therapeutic; even if we don’t fully understand it, something is being dropped, anger and resentments are given up”. If some prisoners are helped to find a new calm in their way of being, based on “stop and think”, the Prison Phoenix Trust is surely not wasting its time.
courtesy of The Tablet, www.thetablet.co.uk
