22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY january 19-25, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com with the inmates, but McDrew is selective and quickly weeds out spectators who will come only once to be able to tell people they’ve been to prison. Before reaching the yard and getting into the low dayroom building, a lilliput among giants towering above it, everybody’s ID is checked three times. There will be a couple of more checks on the way back and the obligatory trunk opening at the exit gate, operated by young guards, males and females. There’s a strict dress code. No spaghetti straps, no denim, no gray denim or gray shirts that would resemble inmates’ attire. No hugging, no trading anything—items, drugs, information. The inmates, even those who did sign up, don’t know that it’s a two-waystreet miracle. They are not the only ones who benefit from this “educational exchange,” as the official description of the program reads. An “emotional exchange” would be as accurate of a description. When the EinE group finally gets into the building, Brothers in Blue, as the 80 inmates who will participate in the program are referred to, are already inside, lined up around the dayroom. Most of them wear blue shirts on white T-shirts and darker pants with the name of the prison in big, yellow letters. Shaking hands with each of them will take a few minutes, but it’s hard to overstate its importance. Done twice, before and after each session, it cements the new bonds in an invisible but palpable way. While the program is open to any inmate in this yard—and for the first time in its history it offers an exchange for their participation credits into a few days off from their years-long sentences—Sensitive Needs Yard is not a typical CTF population. “This is not the main population yard,” McDrew explains. “This yard is under protective custody.” Eighty percent of inmates are there because they had to be taken from the main yard for either their own, or someone else’s, safety. That means that all special needs inmates will be here for a range of reasons—military veterans requiring assistance, and also serious sex offenders. Some are here because their life is at risk—they are escaping homophobia, drugs or gang life omnipresent in the main yard. “I find it more peaceful,” McDrew says, even though she eventually plans to offer the program to any inmate population. She would be happy to go anywhere with EinE. What she requires from all participants, incarcerated and not, is showing up on time and commitment. Each two-hour session has two elements. Before dispersing into circles or families where more intimate conversations take place, all participants sit together on benches arranged as audience seating. The civilians and the inmates are encouraged to sit together. This simple action immediately transforms the prison into an institution of higher education. More importantly, all participants are now one student body. That’s the time when one of McDrew’s assistants, Smith, leads breathing exercises. Most inmates close their eyes and lean upward on the benches. They exhale loudly, some are swinging; others lose patience with the exercise and look around. “You can use this technique every day, anytime, throughout your life,” Smith says, promising that the effect of the clear head and the sense of relaxation can be achieved anywhere—even in prison. Each week of EinE is devoted to a different issue. The fifth week is for societal trauma, the sixth is for gender, seventh for race. Participants do readings on their own each week. One of the first readings assigned is the first chapter from the 2014 book by Roman Krznaric, Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It, followed by The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice by Fania E. Davis from 2019. There are dark green UC Santa Cruz folders that some inmates use to arrange their readings in order. The names of thinkers they read vary from activist and philosopher Angela Davis to contemporary vulnerability guru Brené Brown to the late actress Audrey Hepburn. There are quotes to reflect on. In addition to a strong feminist core, Martin Luther King Jr. returns several times, including a lively discussion about what would have happened if he had a chance to carry on with his Dream. EinE doesn’t shy away from issues such as mass incarceration in the U.S., systemic trauma, the trauma caused by prison itself, and a need for racial reconciliation. The “lecture part” is brief and interactive, and serves as a prompt to more engaging activities in smaller circles. McDrew called them families. Each family has about five to seven inmates and a couple of the outside participants. The work in circles takes a solid hour—then all families are called back to sit at the audience. There, two representatives from each family share “sparks from the fire,” which can be pretty much anything they want to share. In that part of the session, personalities show up. Some inmates enjoy speaking in front of the audience, others are clearly uncomfortable. “Wait until the last session,” McDrew says. She is referring to the final, eighth week of the program, when a ceremony will be held. She calls it the Performance Night. Then, all participants are asked to prepare something, if they feel like it. It can be spoken word, poetry, a letter, a speech, a song, whatever. “At the last session, at the very last minute, everybody wants to speak.” The idea that prison as punishment doesn’t work and makes a serious criminal from a petty thief is not new. It was proclaimed by French philosopher and historian of ideas Michel Foucault in his breakthrough analysis of Western penal systems Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975). Along with society, prison changes too. When in 1968, the name “Soledad State Prison” was officially changed to “The Correctional Training Facility” it was due to the extensive educational and vocational training available to the inmate population. “This is not the only system that needs revamping,” says Carlos Aceves, McDrew’s other assistant. His function is different from Smith’s; he is not an expert on mindfulness. But he was incarcerated for 21 years, including in CTF. Aceves flies in from San Diego every week and takes an Uber from San Jose Airport to Soledad. One night, on his way back, he couldn’t find an Uber but started to pray and he soon met a guy who gave him a ride, he says. “Now I Sergio Zarazua, second from right, exercising empathy in the circle, sharing a story with inmates and visitors. Micah Harris works on a writing exercise on the topic of race. “There are 80 lessons in empathy here, 80 teachers.”
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