Prison education officers

The meditation groups are very important. Most of the prisoners are exposed to meditation for the first time in jail and they report that they would not have been exposed to this tool of their own initiative. Experiencing meditation expands their world and the issues they deal with. Meditation helps them understand the body-soul connection and practicing meditation reduces pressure and helps them cope with the period of incarceration.

Meditation is important as part of the prisoner rehabilitation program, particularly for the addicts, because it enables inward observation, focusing one’s attention and distancing oneself from distractions. In most addiction rehab programs, meditation is mentioned as a therapeutic tool, as part of the treatment. Treatments for addiction, such as meditation, emphasize enhancement of one’s self-awareness, inward observation, as an initial means of identifying emotional and cognitive patterns and their features.

Meditation can be very helpful for coping with severe mental situations and with the harsh conditions of life in jail. Practicing meditationis not dependent on anything, it is performed independently and is available at all times, and enables both internal coping and coping with external situations. There is no doubt that practicing meditation can affect impulsive reactions and thus it can also have the effect of reducing violence.

I see a considerable impact of meditation on the prisoners. They are very connected to themselves, I see them calmer and notice their ability to regulate reactions stemming from pressure and nerves. Prisoners relate that meditation lets them modify their reactions, stop, breathe, observe their responses instead of being within the outburst. The effect of practicing meditation is also evident in rehab groups for drug addiction, domestic violence, and sex offenses.

Meditation is an inseparable part of the prisoners’ therapeutic process. It enables connection to the inner self, practicing inner listening and listening to others. We see that prisoners who take meditation practice seriously and connect to the contents conveyed in the workshops show some behavioral change, listen more to themselves and to others.

Meditation groups teach the prisoner a language through which he can achieve alertness and observe many topics that occupy him and occur in his life.

A prison who chooses meditation as a way of life and who practices can receive a great deal from this and it will obviously have an effect on how hedeals with the prison term and help with his rehabilitation.

Prisoners told us that meditation is the only “sport” that helps them feel comfortable with their body, a key to self-understanding and to understanding the surrounding world. They say that meditation helped them achieve peace, inner quiet, and concentration.

Meditation is an inseparable part of the prisoners’ therapeutic process. It enables connection to the inner self, practicing inner listening and listening to others. We see that prisoners who take meditation practice seriously and connect to the contents conveyed in the workshops show some behavioral change, listen more to themselves and to others.”

An education officer from a prison in northern Israel relates:

“Meditation groups teach the prisoner a language through which he can achieve alertness and observe many topics that occupy him and occur in his life.

A prison who chooses meditation as a way of life and who practices can receive a great deal from this and it will obviously have an effect on how hedeals with the prison term and help with his rehabilitation.

Prisoners told us that meditation is the only “sport” that helps them feel comfortable with their body, a key to self-understanding and to understanding the surrounding world. They say that meditation helped them achieve peace, inner quiet, and concentration.

Meditation is a tool that can help prisoners in complicated mental states. When practicing meditation the prisoner is focused solely on himself and his thoughts, attentive to himself, aware of himself, connected to his subconscious and to his simplest and most inner desires as a person.

In meditation class the prisoner has an opportunity to look within himself and be calm with himself, enabling him to reach insights regarding occurrences in the prisoners’ wing, in the therapeutic group, or within himself.

Thanks to the meditation class they create this enabling spacefor themselves, assisted by the volunteer who teaches and directs them. The prisoners relate that they practice not only in the presence of the volunteer and that they use the techniques they learned in class during the week, showing that meditation helps them focus, release tensions, and create a state of quiet within themselves.

Meditation is an important, unique tool that differs from other tools they are given. It is a positive and one of a kind project and therefore it should be maintained.

It is important to have meditation groups because they afford the prisoner space to process complicated mental states, process experiences resulting from the therapy they receive, a space to observe complex situations in life in prison in conditions that are far from simple. The quiet formed within him by practicing meditation lets experiences emerge and lets the prisoner reach a deep understanding of sensations he experiences in everyday life.

Prisoner rehabilitation can be assisted by meditation because practice encourages the development of skills of internal and external listening, emotional regulation, and better control of reactions, understanding and calming urges and thus preventing impulsiveness.

Meditation can help reduce violence. If meditation practice is through the prisoner will be able to delay impulsive reactions and it can also help with decision making. After the incident, the prisoners recognize their mistake, but because they were agitated they were unable to may adequate choices.

The meditation groups we have in the therapeutic departments are very important. The therapeutic process the prisoners undergo is supposed to lead to real and deep change and it is an emotionallystimulating and difficult process. In this process the prisoner undergoes various experiences and events. Appropriate processing of these experiences by practicing meditation provides an emotional space and assists in the therapeutic process of drug rehabilition.