Last year we took steps toward expanding the scope and effectiveness of what we do. This year we have been consolidating and deepening our understanding of what men on the inside need and how to better serve them as they return to the community. Highlights:
- · In March of this year JCP co-sponsored a workshop at Suffolk University in Boston entitled “Wearing the Scarlet Letter: The Challenges and Possibilities of CORI Reform” Panelists discussed the legal and social context of reentry as it relates to the transitional process from prison to community.
- · Our 5th Weekend Intensive Training (2-days) was held at Bay State Correctional Center, March 14-15. Facilitators for this workshop came from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Florida, Wisconsin and California.
- · Our 6th Weekend Intensive Training (3-days) was held at FMC Devens, June 25-27. This workshop was facilitated by men from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.
- · Our 2nd Weekend Intensive Training at MCI-Norfolk is scheduled for September 25-26.
- This year, as in the past, men from our facilitators teams traveled to Wisconsin to support our brothers in the T.R.U.T.H. project (To Restore Understanding Trust and Hope). Our collaboration with T.R.U.T.H. gives members of our team greater insight into and appreciation of the power of our inside work.
- · A new volunteer-based project at the Dallas County Jail entitled the “New Tools Circle” has been inspired by JCP. This program applies the approaches and techniques developed in our prison circles to men serving time in Texas.
Photo by Albert Cook
Men’s circles to bring down the walls
Circles are a place where inner discoveries become possible and truth can be told. Joseph Campbell has said that “When a magician wants to work magic, he puts a circle around himself, and it is within this bounded circle, this hermetically sealed-off area, that powers can be brought into play that are lost outside the circle.”
The Jericho Circle Project volunteers create and facilitate men’s circles in prisons to support personal change and the discovery of deeper truth. These circles help incarcerated men develop tools to come to terms with their inner struggles and bring down the walls that separate them from their loved ones, communities and themselves. Carefully crafted to develop trust and support authenticity, Jericho circles help men see themselves more clearly, many for the first time. In Jericho circles men learn how to identify and express their feelings, communicate clearly, address conflicts in their lives, hold themselves accountable, identify new personal directions and, perhaps most importantly, find out “what makes them tick.” When equipped with these skills, men serving time are able to develop a more congruent way of living both within and beyond the walls. “Walking their talk” is one place that men in our circles begin to make diffeent choices and see different possibilities for their futures. Jericho encourages and supports men in “getting real.” Through JCP programs, offenders get to look at their shadows and come to understand the costs to themselves and others of keeping those shadows locked up. The “crisis of masculinity” has kept many men behind walls of their own and society’s making– many of those men end up in prison as a result.. JCP offers incarcerated and transitioning men support to bring down those walls and find new ways to reinvent their lives and become powerful and productive men in the world.
Contact Information: E-mail: info@jerichocircle.org Telephone: (617) 576-1066