A Helping Hand for Convicts : Penology: Volunteer program aims to steer prisoners from violence to a peaceful way of life.

Within the rigid infrastructure of the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility on Otay Mesa, one rule is inviolable. Breaking it could have grave consequences.

“In prison, everybody has his own space,” explains Chaplain Buzz Brewer, Donovan’s religious director and activity coordinator. “You don’t put your hands on an inmate. Maybe, if it’s your homeboy, you roughhouse. But there’s no white man putting his hands on a black man or vice versa.”

Yet, for the past several months at Donovan, hands of different colors have clasped those of fellow inmates, then intertwined. Donovan officials look on and marvel.

Such anomalies are commonplace to members of the Alternatives to Violence Project West, known as AVP, a volunteer project sponsored jointly by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and the San Diego Peace Resource Center.

The project involves training inmates as well as outside volunteers to conduct workshops on nonviolence inside the prison. Two weeks ago, AVP conducted its first session, in which prisoners acted as both students and teachers inside the facility.

“Without sounding like an absolute Don Quixote, the purpose of the program is to bring peace in the world, to reduce violence by doing self-help seminars in developing self-knowledge in interpersonal relationships,” said Karen Cauble, the program’s co-director.

Cauble, a social worker who has devoted two years to the project, said it began 15 years ago in New York state at the request of inmates themselves, who were fed up with the lock-step cycle of crime and incarceration. Through a series of three-day workshops staffed by community volunteers, groups of 15 to 20 inmates are led through exercises and discussions meant to foster self-esteem, a sense of community and the peaceful resolution of conflict. The small changes reported at Donovan after these weekends register as major metamorphoses in the closed arena of the prison.

“We had some pretty heavy sorts in here,” Chaplain Brewer said of the first of the six workshops he has arranged with AVP so far. “To see them hand in hand, racially balanced, all interacting there, was exactly what we are trying to promote. This program requires that they touch each other. Afterward, they may not go sit down with each other in the mess hall, but at least it makes contact.”

Although swollen to more than twice its optimum capacity of 2,200 inmates, officials say Donovan is no more violent than most prisons. However, during a recent workshop, inmates were improvising crisis-deflecting reactions to a hypothetical knife attack when gates clanged shut and commands to freeze blared over the loudspeakers. A prisoner in the yard had just stabbed a fellow inmate.

According to Cauble, AVP has targeted prisons because they harbor “the population we in society have labeled most violent.” But the concepts shared are not limited to prisoners. The prevalence of fear, power struggles and anger in daily life are tackled too--nonviolently. Cauble says her workshops have reached teen-agers who are on probation or considering suicide. “We are giving them tools to resolve problems before they end up in prison,” she said.

Donovan officials and participants alike seem favorably impressed by AVP, but say its actual impact on prisoners is difficult to gauge because formal follow-up studies have not been done because of a lack of funds.

“We know who has been through the program, but we are not tracking them,” said Brewer. “We just get anecdotal things that indicate it’s been paid attention to.

“The weight yard is divided--white, black, every group has its own section. The second-strongest person on the yard, someone was messing with his weights. Everyone backed off, waiting for the ensuing fight that was sure to follow. Instead, he went and talked to them, got the weights back and settled the thing without a fight. That was immediately following his participation in the workshop.”

After seeing an AVP flyer requesting help, Bob Duggan, manager of the prison work program at Donovan, offered to handle the logistics of chaperoning, keeping the keys and getting prisoners to meals during a recent workshop. He had heard good things about the program, and wasn’t disappointed.

“It was well received by the prisoners. They all participated, no one hung back. That’s something you can’t fake. There were several who said, ‘I’ve just told you fellas things about myself that I’ve never told anyone else.’ ”

Prisoners receive a “laudatory” or “atta-boy” memo in their central files for attending the workshop, according to Brewer. However, merely attending the program has little bearing on parole without an accompanying shift in behavior. Those involved say inmates seem to appreciate the program on its own merits. Prisoners sign up on their own initiative, many giving up paid work hours to attend. Nevertheless, first-day participants are wary.

“They were very suspicious at first,” said Dave Neptune, an AVP volunteer. “Prisoners are amazed that someone would be willing to spend a long weekend with them.”

An AVP weekend moves in slow stages as the prisoners begin to let down their guard, starting off with simple admissions of self-worth--inmates are asked to share their positive qualities with the group--followed by building trust and awareness through cooperative games, and culminating in collaboration between men to solve potentially explosive prison conflicts, such as being cut off in line for a phone call or shower.

“When you start with a group of men who don’t talk to or trust each other, and whose macho culture doesn’t allow them to show any kind of weakness, and take them into the areas of communication, trust and self-esteem, it is just a remarkable kind of sequence,” said Neptune.

Cauble agrees. “Nobody bails. They become responsible. Our purpose is to empower the participants so we end up with a group of leaders.”

Cauble, who recently returned from an AVP workshop in an Alaska state prison, shared some reactions from inmates there. On an informal comment sheet, a prisoner named John wrote: “Some exercises helped me let the inner me out, and others helped develop my confidence in others. I can’t say enough for the program.” An inmate named Jack scrawled: “Better understanding oneself first will allow respecting others better.”

A subversive idea seems to be at work: that the aggression leading to criminal behavior can be transformed instead into a different kind of power, a will to arrive at solutions in which everyone, not just the mightiest, triumphs. The phrase transforming power , a sort of active pacifism, is the key concept of the program. Although it sounds visionary, workshop leaders refrain from proselytizing, or even from befriending prisoners.

The Quakers’ San Diego Monthly Meeting endorses AVP’s overriding philosophy of pacifism and has adopted a complementary relationship with AVP of “representation but not responsibility,” according to its recent minutes. Many AVP volunteers are Quakers; Brewer said his familiarity with the faith stems from his experience in the Salvation Army.

“Quakers have a pretty good reputation in the field of rehabilitation,” he said. “But, because of their political activism, some of us wondered (when approached by Cauble on behalf of the program), ‘What are they going to stir up here?’ I asked them straight up and was convinced they weren’t going to use the program as a political platform.”

“Most people (participating) are not familiar with Quakers or think they’re New Age,” said Cauble, a Quaker. The Religious Society of Friends and prison work traditionally have been associated, she said. “In the 1600s, Friends thrown into prison returned to help those they left behind. And, in the 1700s, the Quakers influenced the idea of the penitentiary as a place to be put aside to think. Quakers may be more dedicated because we do believe in service and living our beliefs. But we’re not evangelical. You don’t have to be Quaker to participate. The workshop developed out of the Quaker value of respect for all people, that there is that of God, the light, in each person.”

Although the nonprofit American Friends Service Committee and the San Diego Peace Resource Center are generous with their time, adequate funding has not yet caught up with AVP-West’s reputation for success. With United Way or similar funds years down the road, AVP must rely on volunteer help to continue its work.

“There’s been a lot of interest from other prisons at the state level,” Neptune said. “The prison administration is anxious to increase nonviolence in prison settings, but we don’t have enough trained volunteers to do that yet.”

Even with the emphasis on cooperation, reversing the social machinery of belligerence and mistrust cannot be achieved in a weekend or two, AVP facilitators realize. But it is a start.

“Many community people who have this dedication to promoting nonviolence already will come to training workshops expecting to have pat answers, a 1-2-3 formula for resolving conflict and a happy ending,” Cauble said. “Right now, we don’t have pat answers. But we can set up the process, and together, using the collective intelligence and experience of each person in the group, we can come up with more ideas.”