In Waiting - A New Short Film Made by Boys in Westchester Jail

This story ran in the local paper for Eastchester, NY. It's great to see boys (young men) who have been in trouble make something creative from the experience. Sending blessings for these young men to create lives that their backgrounds would never have predicted.

Film Made by Boys in Westchester Jail to Premiere

Rick Pezzullo (email)

VALHALLA, N.Y. – A film created by students in a youth program at the Westchester County Jail in Valhalla will premiere at the Jacobs Burns Film Center (JBFC) in Pleasantville Monday night.

The nine-minute feature film that chronicles masculinity in prison today was filmed entirely within the confines of the prison by a handful of now former inmates from the Southern Westchester BOCES Incarcerated Youth Program.

"It's been an incredible experience for the JBFC to work with the Incarcerated Youth Program and we are proud to be screening the courageous story the students chose to tell this year," said Emily Keating, director of education programs at the film center. "This transformational experience provides the youth with essential 21st century digital literacy skills and gives them a powerful means of expression."

The film entitled “In Waiting” is an adaptation of Israel Horovitz's seminal play “The Indian Wants the Bronx,” which tells the story of an Indian native who comes to New York knowing very little English and is subsequently taunted and attacked by some young punks.

JBCF staff spent six months teaching the students how to film and edit digital video and helped them produce, write and direct a film amid the dark, barren walls of the jail.

The film project initiative first began at the jail in the fall of 2008. “In Waiting” is the third film made by youths and JBCF. The first was called “Judgement,” which explored the idea of being judged and judging others, while the second, called “Look Inside,” looked at the daily life experiences of being in jail and reflections from students.

The Southern Westchester BOCES Incarcerated Youth Program serves approximately 900 students annually and 140 students a day. There are 18 classrooms available to students, who are in class five hours a day. Credits for the courses are given by the home school districts of the students.

Donnie Simmons, supervisor of the program, said the goal is to "provide the best quality educational services we possibly can to this entire constituent population."

None of the students who worked on “In Waiting” were available for comment.

Meditation helps inmates reach 'natural awareness'

This article appeared in the Houston Chronicle. There are more and more of these meditation programs for inmate being employed around the country - and in every instance that I have heard of the results have been very positive. Rehabilitation vs punishment - for these men, and many others like them, the choice seems obvious.

Meditation helps inmates reach 'natural awareness'

By ALLAN TURNER, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Saturday, September 3, 2011

BEAUMONT - Hung. Or gyen yul gyi nub jang tsam. 

Barefooted, eyes closed in reverie, bodies folded into lotus position, the men in white chanted the ancient Seven Line Supplication to Guru Rinpoche, who brought Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century.

As their voices swelled, their leader, Galveston artist Terry Conrad, swayed with the cadence. Pe ma gey sar dong pol la. Yam Tsen chog gi ngo drub nyey

This could have been a scene from a 1960's love-in, with college-age acolytes - decked out in exotic garb - paying fervid homage to the wisdom of the East. But these men were not students, and their attire was anything but exotic.

They are inmates at Beaumont's Mark Stiles state prison; their duds, functional prison whites. And, under Conrad's gentle guidance, they were here to meditate.

Now in its eighth year, the weekly program offered through the prison chaplain's office, is designed to help prisoners, some guilty of the most heinous offenses, achieve "natural awareness."

"Meditation," Conrad said, "is not about creating a certain state. It's just an opportunity to be present to whatever is going on. Sometimes that's quiet and peaceful, other times the mind is going 100 mph." Such awareness can help the individual "become who they truly are - innately good and wise and compassionate."

"How has this changed me?" said John Harrup, 39, of Magnolia, who has been part of the class since its inception. "I was a different person when I came in here. It has taught me to be more patient, how to deal with people. In laymen's terms, how to communicate better, how to understand another person's viewpoint, to realize that my way is not always the right way."

Read the whole article.