One Thousand Days Program: Prison, Family, Community Initiative
Summary:
For the past seven years, The Ojai Foundation has been developing a long range, council-based initiative that offers a group of self-selected prisoners and their families, an opportunity to participate in a pilot project called the “One Thousand Days Program” (OTDP). This almost three-year period 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 a thousand days has a significantly better chance of staying out indefinitely. Current data indicate that nearly 60 percent of those released from California prisons return to prison within that period of time.
The core of the OTDP vision offers prisoners the opportunity to see their time in prison as a time for healing and personal growth. The program invites prisoners to consider their last one and a half to two years of prison-life as an extended 'vision quest'—a period of personal transformation that brings meaning to their stay in prison and prepares them to become emissaries of productive citizenship in the communities to which they return.
With this goal in mind, OTDP establishes a 'wrap around program' that focuses on prisoners, their families and their communities all working together to create a constructive return from prison. Beginning 18-24 months prior to release, OTDP will offer those on the inside: council, meditation, public speaking self-advocacy, non-violent communication techniques and more. During this same period 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 envisions a three-year post return program that supports participants in a variety of ways as they are integrated back into their communities. For example, once outside, the parolee will explore previously arranged employment opportunities and continue his vocational training and education in self-advocacy that began in prison. Participating families, friends and community members are invited to weekly councils and other educational offerings.
OTDP Update--February 2009:
The final draft of the OTDP
proposal was completed by the Strategic Planning Group (SPG) in April
of 2008 and can be downloaded from this page (click here). Over the months following
its publication, several specialized OTDP trainings for potential facilitators
took place (council and the Theater of the Oppressed, for example).
Despite these important accomplishments and the positive response the
proposal generated, by the end of last year it had become clear the
Project needed ongoing funding in order to fulfill its ambitious vision.
The OTDP grew out of the work
done by a group of dedicated people who form the SPG--with valuable
contributions from the wider OTDP Advisory Group, Ojai Foundation Staff,
and many others who reviewed proposal drafts and offered suggestions
for program development and funding. Our original vision was focused
on implementing the program at the California Correctional Institution
(CCI) in Tehachapi, as well as in South Central Los Angeles but, for
a variety of reasons, efforts to actually fund and start the pilot program
in these locations did not bear fruit. However, the ideas articulated
in the OTDP and the spirit of true social justice the OTDP represents
are so important that we have continued to search for a home where a
strong pilot program can be manifested.
We feel we
have found one that is ripe with opportunities. The Sweetwater Zen Center
in the San Diego area has offered to be the new administrative home
of OTDP, with Alan Mobley, long-time member of the Strategic Planning
Group, acting as coordinator. The Zen Center is an urban residential
center for Zen training and practice. The Center is active in its surrounding
community, participates regularly in interfaith initiatives, and serves
the prisoners at R.J. Donovan state prison. The Prison Meditation Project,
an interfaith meditation program for prisoners, sends a variety of volunteers
into Donovan to sit with prisoners, and has done so for many years.
Council, which came to the Zen Center via Ojai Foundation trainers,
is a core element of practice at the Zen Center and in its prison program.
Sweetwater Zen Center, led by Roshi Ann Seisen Saunders, is a member
of the Peacemaker Sangha headed by Bernie Glassman.
In the spring of 2009 OTDP will offer Council training for the Sweetwater
Zen Center community and for those in Southern California wishing to
support the OTDP. This two-three day training will bring together supporters
from the many strong components of OTDP in San Diego. These Partners
include the Red Lotus Society; the O’Farrell Community School; Project
Live, a program for children of incarcerated parents, members of the
San Diego Reentry Roundtable; All Of Us Or None, an advocacy organization
for former and currently incarcerated persons; and the Second Chance
prisoner reentry program, specializing in pre-employment training and
job placement. The possibilities in the San Diego Area are considerable
and we feel confident now that the OTDP has found fertile ground for
its next stage of implementation.
This time of new beginnings
is also a time for acknowledgements. In recent years the SPG has been
led by David Winett, who has been acting as Project Coordinator. We
are indebted to David for his extensive experience, wisdom and devotion
to our efforts. The SPG, which was formed in 2002, includes Jack Zimmerman,
Gigi Coyle, Marlow Hotchkiss, Alan Mobley, Lucia Vinograd with several
others in our wider Advisory Group assisting from time to time. These
individuals and others concerned with the problems of California’s
expanding prison population, unacceptably high recidivism rates, and
the continued deterioration of our communities caused by these policies
and practices, have also contributed their time and funds to this effort.
We want to give special thanks to Warden Joe Sullivan, who was the Warden
at the California Correctional Institution when we were considering
implementing the program there and recognized the need for, and the
benefits to be realized, by implementing the OTDP vision. Joe is now
Regional Administrator in the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation and has continued to express his support for the program.
The current Warden at CCI and his staff have also offered support and
encouraged the development of the OTDP. Finally, we want to express
our special thanks to the men incarcerated at CCI who met with the SPG
in council and offered their ideas and encouraged us to develop the
program and bring it to CCI. Hopefully, we will find the means to return
to CCI someday and fulfill what is now a joint vision.
Community organizations in
South Central Los Angeles also provided valuable assistance in the development
of the OTDP. Yusef Omwali, Director of the Southern California
Library of Social Studies, which is located in South Central, offered
us the Library as the OTDP’s base in that area. Yusef also offered
to provide internships for OTDP participants when they returned home.
Mark Faucette of the Amity Foundation, was also a strong supporter of
the OTDP. Mark agreed to provide housing at the Amistad residential
program in South Central for OTDP men who didn’t have a family or
a home to which they could return. The SPG also wishes to thank
the men and women living in South Central who met with us and made it
clear how valuable they thought the OTDP would be to their community
With David Winett’s move
from Tehachapi to Eugene, Oregon last July, we knew a new venue for
the OTDP, as well as new leadership, were needed. Alan Mobley’s extensive
experience with the criminal justice system; his position as Assistant Professor
at the School of Public Affairs, San Diego State University; and his
close association with all the organizations mentioned above, provides
that. The initiation of
the Program in the San Diego Area is a clear indication of how relevant
the program is, regardless of the location of the prison and the wider
community it serves. We are grateful that Alan is taking on this effort
and urge you to contact him to get your questions answered and to provide
whatever assistance you can. He can be contacted by email at alan.mobley@sdsu.edu.
Meanwhile, David plans to present
a revised version of the OTDP to the Oregon Department of Corrections
(Oregon’s prisoner population totals 14,300). David can be contacted
at: david.winett@mac.com.
On behalf of the SPG, we wish to express gratitude to all who participated in and supported the development of the One Thousand Days Program. We have all created a beautiful alternative to that which exists today.
A Snapshot of the Current State of Corrections
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.
- 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'.
A brief history of CA Prisons
