Years ago, when I first heard about the Clemente Course, pioneered by Earl Shorris, a social critic and author who believed in teaching  the Humanities to the poor and the vulnerable, I was intrigued.  The concept aimed to offer classics such as Kant, Plato, Socrates and Tolstoy to people who traditionally have no access to such work — the homeless.  Since the program began in the 1990's, the Clemente Course has expanded and now prospers world-wide.

In that vein, a fascinating venture is Lisa Guenther's work reading philosophy with prisoners on death row.  Guenther wrote a wonderful op-ed piece about solitary confinement in the NYTimes in 2012 where she said "There are many ways to destroy a person, but the simplest and most devastating might be solitary confinement. Deprived of meaningful human contact, otherwise healthy prisoners often come unhinged."

Guenther brings a bit of light into the dark hole of solitary.  On a blog called,  "New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science" she says "Last semester, we read Plato’s dialogues on the death of Socrates. The Apology was a great success. 'I want my lawyer to read this!' said one prisoner. 'Socrates is a badass,' another said approvingly. The Crito was another story. Socrates went from bring a principled badass to a spineless bastard, not just for refusing Crito’s offer of escape and exile, but mainly for his defense of fidelity to the law and the state, even when it has clearly committed a grave injustice."

Guenther's students on Death Row are in Tennessee. They are concerned about community and they are concerned about living a meaningful life– however much they have left and even though they live on Death Row. One student, Abu Ali Abdar Rahman, in a newspaper called The Maximum Times, published at the prison itself, wrote an article about the experience with Guenther and her grad students called "Transformative Justice: A Pilgrimage to Community Building and Conflict Resolution."  He says that the group appreciates the opportunity to learn, to think, to discuss and to "nourish our defects." 

Another student, Derrick Quintero in the same paper, said outsiders are often surprised that on Death Row, prisoners get to participate in programs, but Tennessee's Death row allows them such participation for "good behavior." The educational opportunities are transformative, he says, for the participants, both those inside and outside of prison.  He quotes Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his article, citing his book A Saint on Death Row, and saying that they all have the potential to be "indispensable agents of change."

Guenther writes that the philosophy course used Plato's Phaedo, "the dialogue that recounts Socrates’ final hours before he is forced to drink the poison that will numb his body and stop his heart."  She recounts how some students "found Socrates’ arguments for the immortality of the soul compelling, and others thought he rejected the knowledge and pleasures of the body too harshly." One prisoner argued that state execution "twists the meaning of life and death."  In many ways, these kinds of insights are no different that students in any other part of the prison, or for that matter, in most classrooms.

Guenther says insightfully that "there are countless prisoners on death row who are working harder than we can imagine to transform themselves and to build a meaningful sense of community. We could learn a lot from these people if we weren’t so determined to kill them."

It’s not the fast-paced car chases, the explosions, or the careening out of control that impressed me about SNITCH; it’s the heartbreaking story about a father’s desperate attempt to save his son who is embroiled in the horror of mandatory minimum sentences.  And for that, everyone who sees the movie will get a visceral education.

Dwayne Johnson is surprisingly good as a father who is estranged from his son (Rafi Gavron) and discovers that the naive kid agrees to accept a package of drugs for his best buddy who wants to sell them around school.  The boy protests but he’s not strong enough to stand up for himself at this point, battered by a difficult divorce and furious at his father for abandoning him.  But when the brown paper package arrives at his house, I found myself screaming at the screen, “Don’t open the package!” –that’s how believable the scene was.  Of course he does, and of course the buddy has been set up.  A chase, bedlam, the boy is caught and imprisoned and given a mandatory minimum sentence of years and years behind bars.  Only the federal prosecutor can lower the sentence.

The two become close as the father (with the bland last name of  “John Matthews” who could of course be “Everyman”) discovers that the only way he can get his son’s sentence reduced is to bring the prosecutor a high level drug dealer.  She, of course, makes him go beyond what he promises and therein lies the excitement and terror of the story.

But the scenes between the father and his son who is being mistreated behind bars — beaten up for sure and God knows what else as it’s all implied- are what made me realize the depth of the snitch problem.  Who wouldn’t do anything to save his kid?  Who wouldn’t inform on friends or drive trucks across the border to get a break in draconian drug sentencing?  The idea that you shouldn’t snitch is ingrained in the boy who refuses to rat out his friends but how can a father refuse?

For those who criticized casting directors for choosing Dwayne Johnson, I beg to disagree.  I was surprised that he was so convincing.  But it seemed pretty plausible to me that someone who looks and acts like The Rock would be about the only thing that could coerce a Mexican drug cartel into believing he was on the up and up.

Other actors are also fantastic in this film.  Barry Pepper plays an enforcer working for the government who is the only one with a conscience. John Berenthal from The Walking Dead  plays a former low-level drug dealer who is trying desperately to stay out of the game and gets caught up again because of money.  If you were offered $20,000 in this day and age, what would you be willing to do, the film poses. He gets us into the grimy side of drug dealing and into the world of the kingpins where the wonderful Michael K Williams (The Wire) and interestingly-cast Benjamin Bratt (Law and Order) reign. The impossibly driven and mostly heartless Federal prosecutor played to perfection by the always-amazing Susan Sarandon.  And Ravi Gafron as Matthews’s son Jason has the perfect innocence and childlike despair for the role.

See it and enjoy the action.  Read my other blog about Snitch and the tragedy facing so many who make mistakes when they’re young and get incarceration rather than treatment.  And then remember that “48.7%” of those who were convicted of a drug crime carrying a mandatory minimum receive 10 years or more.

A new book by Teya Sepinuk Theatre of Witness: Finding the Medicine in Stories of Suffering, Transformation and Peace debuts this week.  It tells the story of those whose stories are often not told.  Taking the beauty and suffering of those we call "the great unwashed," Sepinuk mines the truths of refugees, immigrants, survivors and perpetrators of domestic abuse, ex-combatants, members of the security forces, teenage runaways, prisoners and their families, people living in poverty or without homes, families of murder victims, women in transition, people in recovery and survivors of war."  She also tells her tale and reveals how she developed her techniques and philosophy.

Theatre of Witness is a model of performance, first developed in 1986 that gives voice to those whose worlds are not on the front pages. According to their website  "the true, life stories, of people from diverse backgrounds are performed by people themselves, so that audiences can collectively bear witness to issues of suffering, redemption and social justice."  Techniques include spoken word, music, movement and cinematic imagery, but all "put a face and heart to societal issues of suffering, and celebrate the power of the human spirit to grow and transform."

Two productions/productions to-be fascinate me the most of the over 40 that Sepinuk has created in her many years as a theatre artist.  One is Release which deals with men who are coming to terms with the legacy of their past in Northern Ireland. The show includes a former prison governor, a former detective, a former British soldier, two ex-prisoners and a man who had been blown up in a car bomb as a child.  The production toured Ireland through November, 2012, and will tour internationally during 2013. A documentary will be released of the show as well, premiering in April, 2013.  See the website for details.

The other show I'd love to see, Women and War ,will bring survivors of war from countries such as Rwanda, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Gaza, Israel, Sudan, East Timor and Northern Ireland.beyond Northern Ireland together to share their struggles of building peace in the aftermath of conflict .  What an amazing idea, to forge such a community and have these woman create theatre together.

A book launch in the U.S. will occur in Philadelphia on April 25th and early reviews are great:  "“If you have any doubts about the power of socially-engaged theatre to challenge and heal, the stories and reflections in Theatre of Witness should put them to rest,” said Howard Zehr, professor of Restorative Justice, Center for Justice & Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University.

A new movie hits theatres around the country on February 22nd and it looks guaranteed to be another knockout in the collection of eye opening stories about the results of the so-called "drug war" and incarceration.  But there's a twist to this one.

Here's the sexy action-flick poster which shows Dwayne Johnson.  He stars as John Matthews, a man hit hard when his teenage son is wrongfully ensnared in a drug bust and threatened with a terrifying 10-30 years in federal prison (Oh,by the way that's standard under the US government’s crazy minimum drug sentencing laws.)  For Matthews who wants to help his son, the only option is to “snitch.”  In this case that means becoming an informant.  But across the country this "helpfulness" can take the shape of different Catch-22s but the new reality is that informants have become a part of prosecutorial strategy. 

In Snitch, A deal is eventually made;  a politically ambitious federal prosecutor played by the always amazing Susan Sarandon gets the deal.  Things turn ugly when Matthew become an undercover informant and infiltrates a drug cartel, risking his family and his life.

Some of the facts about informants and mandatory minimums might surprise you.  On this website, developed to get people involved with the issues, you'll discover:
►"45% of people on death row are there because of a lying informant."

Molly Gill, from Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) writes a very convincing editorial about the wrongfully convicted, and here she says:
►"In 2010 alone, nearly one out of five federal offenders facing a mandatory sentence escaped it because they informed on others."
►The problem isn't snitching, per se, it's mandatory minimums which encourage desperate deals.  We need to get rid of them once and for all.
►"Mandatory minimum sentences require so much time in prison—five, ten, 15, 20 years…—that they can easily scare defendants into saying anything, true or not, to catch a break. Desperate defendants can finger the innocent or lie under oath, leading to wrongful convictions."
►"Mandatory minimums bar judges from fitting the punishment to the unique facts and circumstances of each case," although they do not keep us safer or reduce crime….They have succeeded in giving the U.S.. the world’s largest prison population, at an annual cost of more than $70 billion."
►Only prosecutors can ask the court to sentence the "snitch" below the mandatory minimum prison sentence required for the crime. This gives prosecutors "enormous—and un-reviewable—power at sentencing."

You can visit the official movie website and watch the trailer and you can tweet about it there with others. But  some of the real life stories about snitching are killers.  Take for example Timothy Tyler.

Gill tells us that Tyler was a lifelong Grateful Dead fan, an LSD user and a diehard Deadhead. He sold small amounts of LSD to friends and eventually was convicted of two state charges for LSD sales, which resulted in sentences of probation. One of his friends, unbeknownst to Tyler, began working with law officers to set up drug buys in exchange for the promise of a reduced sentence.  He asked Tyler to mail his LSD which he did, five times.

Tyler was arrested and pled guilty to drug distribution. At age 24, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole because his two prior drug convictions (for which he did not serve prison time) triggered the federal three-strikes law.

Did he deserve time?  Perhaps.  But he certainly needed treatment.  And he certainly didn't deserve, at age 24, to be given up on so totally by a society that spends billions of dollars to incarcerate drug offenders instead of treat them. 

Now that yoga is the big thing in fitness — with hot yoga, power yoga, rejuvenating yoga and all sorts of other varieties — it is no surprise that yoga has catapulted past wellness centers into gyms. But it might be a surprise to some that it has finally made it into prisons.

A recent article by Mary Polon in The New York Times points out "When many states have cut.. programs for inmates, citing cost and political pressures, some wardens looking for a low-cost, low-risk way for inmates to reflect on their crimes, improve their fitness and cope with the stress of overcrowded prison life are turning to yoga."  Hey you only need loose fitting clothing and mats.  Particularly if your teachers are volunteers.

This picture is from one across the country where women center themselves.  There are 20 or so yoga programs in California alone; and while programs have not yet been tracked; more and more are bound to crop up.  Men and women behind bars are getting in on the practice as a way to learn patience, quiet their minds and deal with the stresses of isolation and prison.

In one male program, says The Times, prisoners helped each other do handstands. "Then, after 90 minutes of class, one hit the light switch. In the pitch-black room, the men lay on their backs," and the teacher "led them in breathing exercises."

Most people don't realize how radical this is inside a prison.  Having lights out in a group of prisoners takes enormous trust.  There is so much fear that "You have to watch your back,"and many prisoners are terrified to lie down in a group or close their eyes at night, worrying that something could happen to them.  These fears, of course, are not always unfounded. Getting to a deep level of quiet and calm is a great success.  Trusting others is key as good teachers must make their students feel that they are watching out for them, that they are safe.

When I taught at Framingham, I often did breathing exercises with the women before play rehearsals, and at times, they wanted to have their eyes open.  It took a lot for them to breathe slowly, to not break out into laughter, to not be afraid.  But ultimately, as trust got deeper, they did get wonderful benefits from relaxation, which is essentially a kind of meditation in stillness.

Meditation has also gained some new-found cred in prison. In my days, Cheap Shot Howie Carr of the Boston Herald  took down prison meditation with his angry columns, scathing commentaries on the oh-so-many privileges of prisoners. Just after he had gained some traction, it was disappeared.  The fear was always that prisons would look "soft," if they allowed such activities.  

However, according to a 2011 report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, states' spending on corrections has "quadrupled during the past two decades, to $52 billion a year."   Prisons are more willing to try programs that seem a little off the beaten path as long as they have a track record, especially as they want to improve recidivism rates but are desperate to save money.  

Meditation can help with anger, taking responsibility for one's life and as I learned in Sunday School, a willingness to listen to my own "still small voice."  A good NPR  show on meditation in prison can be found here.

While yoga and meditation can't help a prisoner find a job or take away stigma in our society when he returns, it's a great tool.