Changing Minds

The Alternatives to Violence Project is a volunteer-based initiative that teaches nonviolent communication to prisoners. 

In a country where the prison population and incarceration rate are unparalleled by any other nation in the world,

a multitude of reformative programs have sprouted up. American prison systems are an ironic representation of the “American Dream”, with nearly 7 per thousand people imprisoned. Last year, I wrote a research paper about mass incarceration, and why it caused necessary interventionist programs such as the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP).

.

My grandmother worked with AVP for two years in her seventies; for my research project I conducted an interview with her about her experience. She loved being involved with that program, and she loved what she learned. She passed away in February, but her morality lives on in this article, as does her legacy within this magazine.

As a civil rights activist,

the increasingly punitive nature of our country was deeply disturbing to my grandmother. Very active in the community, my grandmother discovered the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) through the local Ithaca Friends Meeting.

“The program was run by Quakers, and I attend Quaker meeting. I got to know some people who had been working with AVP – it sounded really interesting and transformative, so I volunteered.”

-Barbara Barry

The Alternatives to Violence Project began in the late 1970s, when a prison riot in Attica, New York, highlighted the need for intervention. The prison reached out to the local Quaker meeting, essentially asking them to teach the inmates their peaceful ideology. This interaction gave birth to AVP, an organization devoted to teaching nonviolent communication to our growing prison population.

AVP workshops take place over the course of a weekend, with eight-hour increments Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The program not only helps inmates (recidivism rates decreased by 50% among AVP participants) but also changes the perspectives of the facilitators of the program.  Participating in work like this is uplifting and therapeutic, which I saw firsthand through my grandmother.

My grandmother began working for AVP around when I was born: in 2004.

Born in 1936, she was nearly 70 when she began volunteering with the program. At the time she was aware that most people in prison systems were either black or Hispanic. Even with this preconception,

The program created a beneficial mutualism;

“The techniques you teach are instilled within you; you learn peaceful communication as you teach it during the workshop. My husband and I used these lessons in our own lives, it really helped us listen to and understand each other’s perspectives.”

-Barbara Barry

The program left peace in the lives of whoever it touched; part of its success came from the environment AVP creates:

“When people participate in AVP, they’re entering a room where they’re completely accepted, where there’s equal respect for everyone, and no guards. Because of this, there was this relief, this lightness and freedom that they didn’t get to experience in other situations at prison.”

-Barbara Barry

Each exercise was designed to hone some form of communication: Some focus on listening, others on trust, and nearly all promote empathy and understanding each other’s perspectives. 

With hundreds of exercises, there’s a lot of freedom in how the workshops are structured.

Rules were collectively agreed upon by everyone in the workshop, but generally came down to this: “No one interrupts each other, there’s no fighting, and people are respectful of each other’s opinions.”

This reinforced the positive environment AVP strives to create, and made participants feel comfortable. An intimacy was created as the workshop progressed. Eventually, participants got into “really baring your soul, you know, talking about what you did to get in there and why, what it’s like and what that means for you.”

To her, the Alternatives to Violence Project helped combat some of the effects of that unfairness. Within the workshop, at least,  prisoners could see themselves aside from their crimes, for who they are as human beings and who they might want to become. Facilitators learned that many prisoners are kind, sensitive, good-hearted people who should not be defined by their worst moments. 

As I interviewed my grandmother,

one story stood out to me most. While she was talking about how some workshops don’t always go as well as others, she remembered an instance where a remark completely froze the conversation. As she tells it, “One man was having a difficult time with what we were teaching through AVP. He lived on the same level of the prison with a man who treated him terribly, and he said to me:

“I see him as a piece of sh*t and he always will be a piece of sh*t. He could take all of the AVP workshops in the world and he won’t ever be any different.’ It sort of stopped the whole thing, but there was an old man in the workshop who had been there for a very long time, and had not been treated well in the prison, not by the other prisoners but by the prison system itself. This man had a lot of wisdom, he said, ‘you know, 20 years ago somebody would have said that about me, and it was true. I didn’t think I was ever going to be anything but a piece of sh*t, but I changed. AVP helped me to do that.’  It was a wonderful intervention. I was going to say something to him, but that old man saw me and raised his hand to speak. When he said that, I thought, ‘nothing I could have said would’ve meant anything to that man.’ I was so glad he said that, it was such a beautiful moment.”

-Barbara Barry

Since my grandmother stopped working for the program, the Alternatives to Violence Project has expanded to marginalized communities in an effort to teach nonviolent communication outside of prisons as well. Learn more about the organization here.

(All photos of my grandmother were taken by my family, all quotes are from an interview I conducted. I do not own any of the other images in this article; all images I do not own are sourced.)