Meditation in prison

Why we should teach meditation in prison

For the past year, I have spent every Wednesday at a county jail located outside Compton, California. And every Wednesday, I teach the inmates meditation and yoga.  Meditating in jail, as you might suspect, can be challenging. With horns honking, music blaring, and frequent interruptions by guards, I’m privileged to know a group of over twenty prisoners who can, despite these challenges, calmly sink into.


Seated meditation with apparent ease and grace. Recent research and county records support that the large majority of incarcerated women and men in the United States have faced one or often multiple traumas, including physical and/or sexual abuse, prostitution as a means of survival, and/or as a victim of sex or drug trafficking. Yoga and meditation are continuously proven among the most effective therapies for those living with complex residual trauma, and prisons are home to what may be the most concentrated population of individuals plagued by trauma. Given the country’s widespread prison overpopulation and its associated costliness, promoting the rehabilitation and transformation of incarcerated persons with an emphasis on healing trauma may be a valuable strategy to ensure prisoners’ safe and healthful reentry into society. Meditation and yoga can positively impact those who are suffering from complex trauma, as they begin to confront how it is they got where they are.                                                 
One of my objectives in providing meditation and yoga to prisoners is to support and enable community building amidst an otherwise hostile environment. Many women I’ve taught have expressed the usefulness of meditation for combating insomnia, anxiety, depression, PTSD, withdrawal symptoms, arthritis and more. Even with six weekly classes at the facility, there is consistently a waitlist of students hoping to partake in meditation and yoga in hopes of improving themselves—both physically and mentally—while enduring time away from their lives and families. My involvement in “prison meditation,” as an extension of studying trauma-informed mindfulness and Buddhist meditation practices, has developed into a passion that I feel extends far beyond myself, just by sharing it with others. What might meditation bring to our communities if more of us shared the practice among those without access?

Source: https://www.headspace.com/blog/2016/03/31/why-we-should-teach-meditation-in-prison/

Estudiantes: Florencia Abad- Tatiana Díaz- Diosma Facal

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