One Thousand Days Program: Prison, Family, Community Initiative

The Ojai Foundation is coordinating the planning and initial implementation of a five-year program that will offer selected prisoners and their families, an opportunity to participate in a pilot project called the 'One Thousand Days Program' (OTDP). This amount of time represents a significant threshold in the lives of those released from prison. A man or woman who has remained out of prison for at least three years has a statistically significant better chance of staying out. Current data indicate that nearly 60 percent of those released from California prisons return to prison within three years.

Our vision is to offer prisoners the opportunity to see their time in prison as a time for healing and personal growth. In keeping with the Ojai Foundation's practices of council and ceremony, we are essentially asking prisoners to consider their last one and a half to two years of prison-life as an extended 'vision quest'--as a choice to engage in this period as a personal journey of spiritual growth. We hope to support a situation where these men will find meaning in their lives by choosing to become emissaries of exemplary citizenship back in their communities.

With this goal in mind, OTDP intends to establish a 'wrap around program' that focuses on prisoners, their families and their communities in preparation for a constructive return from prison. Beginning 18-24 months prior to release, TDP will offer those on the inside council, meditation, public speaking self-advocacy, non-violent communication techniques and more. Outside, families will also be meeting in council, learning nonviolent communication skills and being educated in advocacy by linking and catalyzing the use of existing community programs to create a network of support.

OTDP continues with a 3-year (1000 day) post return program that will support participants in a thorough integration back into their communities. Once outside, the parolee will have previously arranged employment waiting and continue his vocational training and education in self-advocacy. Participating families, friends and community members will be invited to weekly councils and other educational offerings. Efforts of OTDP will, where possible, be coordinated with educational programs with which The Ojai Foundation is connected that are sponsored by the Council Practitioners Center of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Such initiatives will include providing additional council resources and opportunities for TDP participants to speak at schools.

Current progress of OTDP

OTDP is in the final stages of formal proposal writing. Two years of research has included informal and formal meetings of a mostly volunteer group of professional counselors, criminal justice specialists, educators and council facilitators, along with communication and community building specialists. Focus groups were held at the California Correctional Institution at Tehachapi, which included councils with level one and level two inmates, correctional officers, prison educators, correctional counselors, and administrators. Meetings that took place at the Inglewood office of the Division of Adult Parole Operations and the Southern CA Library of Research and Social Justice began the process of establishing community support.

In Los Angeles The Ojai Foundation trained counsel facilitators came together to learn about OTDP. Over twenty signed up to participate in a future training.

Locating funds to support this initiative is our next greatest challenge. The completed proposal will be circulated to foundations and individuals interested in supporting prison reform. Unfortunately, there are not many of these sources. Prisons issues have been a hot potato in politics and it seems there are very few individuals and foundations that will risk association with such a difficult topic

We invite your assistance in finding these sources of support in the form of prayers, funding tips and direct donations. Anyone interested in supporting this program in any way is invited to communicate with us on line or by mail.

A Snapshot of the Current State of Corrections

Council provides all the stakeholders in the school community a way for their voices to be heard. Besides the weekly student councils, a school program can include parent councils, staff/parent councils, parent/student councils and whole community councils).

In the U.S.

• 13.5 million adults pass through American prison and jails each year; 2.2 million on any given day. Each year the United States spends $60 billion dollars on corrections, which includes supporting nearly five thousand adult places of incarceration

In California

• 170,000 inmates populate 33 adult prisons and 40 prison camps. If we add to the mix persons on probation, parole, and in local jails, we find 725,000 adults under some form of 'correctional control' in the state, with annual spending of nearly $9 billion. Living in conditions far more relaxed than lockdown, over 73% of state prisoners are classified as either medium- or minimum-custody, yet fewer than 14% participate in an educational or vocational training program, and less than 11% receive drug treatment. Over 95% of prisoners are eligible for release, but the lack of programs combine with tough parole conditions to bring most back to prison. The Christian Science Monitor reports that in 2002, of 100,000 prisoners released, 85,000 were back in prison within six months. Nationally, the scale of California's recidivism puts it in a league of its own. We all suffer the consequences, but some are made to suffer far more than others.

A brief history of CA Prisons

• In the 1950s, '60s and '70s, education and psychotherapy were at the center of rehabilitation efforts in the California corrections system. In 1952 the groundbreaking study 'Prisoners are People,' was published. Written by wardens who held advanced degrees in social work, this study espoused a philosophy known as 'indeterminate sentencing.' which allowed Judges to offer sentences ranging from a few years to life and parole boards the authority to determine release dates dependant on the offender's reform.
• In 1977, indeterminate sentencing was abandoned due to worries about rising crime. In 1980 state lawmakers enacted legislation stating that the purpose of incarceration was punishment alone and formally wrote 'rehabilitation' out of the penal code. During the 1980s more than 1,000 laws increasing mandatory prison sentences were enacted. In 1994 the 'three strikes' law came into effect mandating 25-years-to-life sentences for offenders with two previous convictions. The consequent prison expansion has resulted in 73 adult correctional facilities housing roughly 170,000 inmates. Traveling along the length of California on Interstate 5, one is never more than an hour from a prison.
• As of July 1, 2005, the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency and the departments and boards within the agency became the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation bringing back the word 'rehabilitation'.