I’m here to speak with you today about
pathway to change the jail labyrinth
project and documentary this was a
collaboration that involved many
different disciplines within our local
community Hampshire County Jail is
situated just outside the city of
Northampton it is home to approximately
250 inmates while I was employed at the
jail I had the opportunity to attend a
workshop involving the labyrinth I was
so impressed I asked the facilitator if
she would come to the jail and do a
pilot program for the incarcerated men
that I worked with there our program was
so successful that we then went on to
develop a 12-week curriculum this was
the skill based program with topics that
included forgiveness moral development
mindfulness problem-solving and
decision-making just to name a few after
the lecture held in the classroom at our
Correctional Facility the men were then
led in a guided meditation they then
walked a portable labyrinth that we had
laid out on the floor at the conclusion
of class we discussed options for
behavioral changes and ways to implement
them into their daily living at one of
the workshops the idea of constructing
an outdoor labyrinth came up when we
approached sheriff Garvey at the jail he
responded yes if you can get the funding
go ahead with the project now you may
wonder what a labyrinth is and why we
would do a program like this at a
correctional facility facility this is a
labyrinth on the coast of Maine and they
are an ancient and sacred symbol over
4000 years old they are not affiliated
with any particular religion the
labyrinth has one entrance it follows a
circuitous path leading into a center
and then back out again I like to refer
to it as a moving meditation the
benefits of walking allowed
are many it clears the mind revitalizes
energy calms the body and reduces stress
correctional facilities can be very
chaotic places in which to live
short periods of serenity as those
experienced on the labyrinth are highly
prized as an aside in a small research
study that we did we found another
benefit of walking the labyrinth not
surprisingly it lowers blood pressure
and pulse the volunteer crews of
incarcerated men did countless hours of
manual labor this is early in the
project when they’re just opening up the
field where the labyrinth is going to be
few more examples of the men working
correctional staff also participated in
the project operating heavy equipment
when it was needed these are supplies
being delivered the pathways for our
labyrinth which was 80 feet it’s very
very large labyrinth and the first of
its kind in the United States within a
correctional facility probably in the
world these are blue stone being
delivered that were part of the pathways
and they were set in gravel this is the
added bonus because we had to do
underground piping to divert water from
the actual labyrinth we had this water
feature that sits beside the labyrinth
this is one of the members of our local
community who came in to work with the
men and taught them how to maintain the
labyrinth all the plantings that are on
the labyrinth that you’ll see in further
slides were donated by the local
community this is sheriff Robert Garvey
he is a very pro education and treatment
Sheriff in 2005 he was the number one
sheriff in the United States he’s a
remarkable man this is him addressing
the guests that came to the labyrinth
dedication ceremony held at the jail
this is done right he’s one of the
incarcerated men and you can see many of
the other men that worked on the project
he is addressing the crowd that came for
the dedication and this is the crowd in
the auditorium at the jail giving the
men a standing ovation for their work on
this project one of the men that
participated in the project as a laborer
and you can just see the pride in his
face at the accomplishment of completing
the labyrinth this particular picture
shows the stark contrast between the
razor wire surrounding the correctional
facility and the beauty of the labyrinth
as one man put it when he walked when I
walked the labyrinth I’m no longer
locked up I’m free now I’d like to share
some very very compelling statistics on
the state of corrections in our country
today the United States leads the world
in the number of people we incarcerate
right about 698 people per 100,000 the
country second behind us is Rwanda with
492 people per 100,000 this stat shows
the lifetime likelihood of United States
citizens born in the year 2001 to be
incarcerated so they looked at two
different groups men and women and they
looked at white Latino and black and
these numbers are they’re horrifying
so for white men we would expect to see
about one in seventeen incarcerated for
Latino men one in six and for black it’s
one in three for white women one in a
hundred and eleven for Latino one in
forty five and for black women that
number is one in eighteen the Bureau of
Justice estimates our total population
of incarcerated people at about 2.2
million additionally this does not
additional numbers include
4.7 million people that are on probation
and parole
many of these are for nonviolent
offenses and they are due to changes in
sentencing law and policy now to talk a
little bit about the cost of
incarceration each individual in the
United States is paying about two
hundred and sixty dollars per year to
keep people incarcerated in our country
the total number on that is about eighty
billion dollars per year to keep people
incarcerated this is a very poor return
for our investment as far as I can see
and there are collateral costs we look
at the increasing number of women that
are incarcerated in our country and we
have to look at the placement of their
children and the services their children
need in order to be maintained we look
at child welfare social services
education and in many cases these
children are placed in foster care
because there aren’t family members to
care for them these costs are not
reflected in the numbers that I’ve given
you on the cost of incarceration and
these are just dollars and cents costs
can you imagine what it would be like to
be a child brought up with one or both
parents incarcerated the great majority
of people that are locked up in our
country today if you trace their crimes
back they are related to drugs and/or
alcohol and many times mental illness
sometimes both some people are dually
diagnosed in our correctional facilities
these these these have long been
illnesses alcoholism mental illness and
drug addiction they are illnesses and
they are treatable so we need to see
treatment for these people within the
correctional system many of the people
that we incarcerate have huge
educational deficits they haven’t had
the opportunities that all of us here
today have just the single fact of
receiving a high school equivalency
while incarcerated greatly increases a
person’s chance for success after
release and lastly
these people many of them do not have a
marketable skill so to put vocational
training programs into the correction
system would offer them a chance to earn
a decent wage once they are released
within corrections we have a chance to
offer a different model and a different
a different model one of treatment and
education not punishment progressive
correctional facilities have large
staffs of volunteers to support their
programming our project at Hampshire
County Jail was funded by two sources
grant monies and a generous anonymous
donation all of the labor and work done
on this project and the time and energy
put into it was by the crew of men who
were incarcerated that volunteered to go
out and build the labyrinth by community
volunteers who came in and worked with
jail staff and by the jail staff
themselves I think we have to look for
ways to find creative solutions to help
solve this problem in our country if we
can find a way to do this in our
community people all over the United
States can do the same thing the now
sheriff in Hampshire County Jail Patrick
K Lane has said that we should remember
98 percent of incarcerated people will
be returning to our communities if we
can do something while they’re in our
care and custody to better their lives
it betters all of society I want to just
end by paraphrasing an Irish poet and
philosopher John O’Donoghue he said that
you can judge a country by the way they
treat their incarcerated people and
their mentally ill people I think we can
do better don’t you thank you
[Applause]
pathway to change the jail labyrinth
project and documentary this was a
collaboration that involved many
different disciplines within our local
community Hampshire County Jail is
situated just outside the city of
Northampton it is home to approximately
250 inmates while I was employed at the
jail I had the opportunity to attend a
workshop involving the labyrinth I was
so impressed I asked the facilitator if
she would come to the jail and do a
pilot program for the incarcerated men
that I worked with there our program was
so successful that we then went on to
develop a 12-week curriculum this was
the skill based program with topics that
included forgiveness moral development
mindfulness problem-solving and
decision-making just to name a few after
the lecture held in the classroom at our
Correctional Facility the men were then
led in a guided meditation they then
walked a portable labyrinth that we had
laid out on the floor at the conclusion
of class we discussed options for
behavioral changes and ways to implement
them into their daily living at one of
the workshops the idea of constructing
an outdoor labyrinth came up when we
approached sheriff Garvey at the jail he
responded yes if you can get the funding
go ahead with the project now you may
wonder what a labyrinth is and why we
would do a program like this at a
correctional facility facility this is a
labyrinth on the coast of Maine and they
are an ancient and sacred symbol over
4000 years old they are not affiliated
with any particular religion the
labyrinth has one entrance it follows a
circuitous path leading into a center
and then back out again I like to refer
to it as a moving meditation the
benefits of walking allowed
are many it clears the mind revitalizes
energy calms the body and reduces stress
correctional facilities can be very
chaotic places in which to live
short periods of serenity as those
experienced on the labyrinth are highly
prized as an aside in a small research
study that we did we found another
benefit of walking the labyrinth not
surprisingly it lowers blood pressure
and pulse the volunteer crews of
incarcerated men did countless hours of
manual labor this is early in the
project when they’re just opening up the
field where the labyrinth is going to be
few more examples of the men working
correctional staff also participated in
the project operating heavy equipment
when it was needed these are supplies
being delivered the pathways for our
labyrinth which was 80 feet it’s very
very large labyrinth and the first of
its kind in the United States within a
correctional facility probably in the
world these are blue stone being
delivered that were part of the pathways
and they were set in gravel this is the
added bonus because we had to do
underground piping to divert water from
the actual labyrinth we had this water
feature that sits beside the labyrinth
this is one of the members of our local
community who came in to work with the
men and taught them how to maintain the
labyrinth all the plantings that are on
the labyrinth that you’ll see in further
slides were donated by the local
community this is sheriff Robert Garvey
he is a very pro education and treatment
Sheriff in 2005 he was the number one
sheriff in the United States he’s a
remarkable man this is him addressing
the guests that came to the labyrinth
dedication ceremony held at the jail
this is done right he’s one of the
incarcerated men and you can see many of
the other men that worked on the project
he is addressing the crowd that came for
the dedication and this is the crowd in
the auditorium at the jail giving the
men a standing ovation for their work on
this project one of the men that
participated in the project as a laborer
and you can just see the pride in his
face at the accomplishment of completing
the labyrinth this particular picture
shows the stark contrast between the
razor wire surrounding the correctional
facility and the beauty of the labyrinth
as one man put it when he walked when I
walked the labyrinth I’m no longer
locked up I’m free now I’d like to share
some very very compelling statistics on
the state of corrections in our country
today the United States leads the world
in the number of people we incarcerate
right about 698 people per 100,000 the
country second behind us is Rwanda with
492 people per 100,000 this stat shows
the lifetime likelihood of United States
citizens born in the year 2001 to be
incarcerated so they looked at two
different groups men and women and they
looked at white Latino and black and
these numbers are they’re horrifying
so for white men we would expect to see
about one in seventeen incarcerated for
Latino men one in six and for black it’s
one in three for white women one in a
hundred and eleven for Latino one in
forty five and for black women that
number is one in eighteen the Bureau of
Justice estimates our total population
of incarcerated people at about 2.2
million additionally this does not
additional numbers include
4.7 million people that are on probation
and parole
many of these are for nonviolent
offenses and they are due to changes in
sentencing law and policy now to talk a
little bit about the cost of
incarceration each individual in the
United States is paying about two
hundred and sixty dollars per year to
keep people incarcerated in our country
the total number on that is about eighty
billion dollars per year to keep people
incarcerated this is a very poor return
for our investment as far as I can see
and there are collateral costs we look
at the increasing number of women that
are incarcerated in our country and we
have to look at the placement of their
children and the services their children
need in order to be maintained we look
at child welfare social services
education and in many cases these
children are placed in foster care
because there aren’t family members to
care for them these costs are not
reflected in the numbers that I’ve given
you on the cost of incarceration and
these are just dollars and cents costs
can you imagine what it would be like to
be a child brought up with one or both
parents incarcerated the great majority
of people that are locked up in our
country today if you trace their crimes
back they are related to drugs and/or
alcohol and many times mental illness
sometimes both some people are dually
diagnosed in our correctional facilities
these these these have long been
illnesses alcoholism mental illness and
drug addiction they are illnesses and
they are treatable so we need to see
treatment for these people within the
correctional system many of the people
that we incarcerate have huge
educational deficits they haven’t had
the opportunities that all of us here
today have just the single fact of
receiving a high school equivalency
while incarcerated greatly increases a
person’s chance for success after
release and lastly
these people many of them do not have a
marketable skill so to put vocational
training programs into the correction
system would offer them a chance to earn
a decent wage once they are released
within corrections we have a chance to
offer a different model and a different
a different model one of treatment and
education not punishment progressive
correctional facilities have large
staffs of volunteers to support their
programming our project at Hampshire
County Jail was funded by two sources
grant monies and a generous anonymous
donation all of the labor and work done
on this project and the time and energy
put into it was by the crew of men who
were incarcerated that volunteered to go
out and build the labyrinth by community
volunteers who came in and worked with
jail staff and by the jail staff
themselves I think we have to look for
ways to find creative solutions to help
solve this problem in our country if we
can find a way to do this in our
community people all over the United
States can do the same thing the now
sheriff in Hampshire County Jail Patrick
K Lane has said that we should remember
98 percent of incarcerated people will
be returning to our communities if we
can do something while they’re in our
care and custody to better their lives
it betters all of society I want to just
end by paraphrasing an Irish poet and
philosopher John O’Donoghue he said that
you can judge a country by the way they
treat their incarcerated people and
their mentally ill people I think we can
do better don’t you thank you
[Applause]
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