Relearning Life

MICHAEL MIRABAL is scheduled to go before the parole board next week, so the little group of San Quentin inmates holds hands in a circle and says a quiet prayer that Mirabal will get his "date" - a definite release time after 24 years in prison and revocation of an earlier time for parole.

The prayer circle is the final moment in a weekly class on anger management, conducted in the main prison building by two men from "outside" - Jacques Verduin of the Insight Prison Project and Peter Van Dyke, who teaches nonviolence to males through the Marin Abused Women's Services - MAWS.

Today, to welcome visitors from the Independent Journal, the inmate participants have shared their feelings about the class, including their gratitude to Verduin and Van Dyke: "It was a blessing when these two gentlemen showed up," says lifer Joe Hill. "I have 15 folders full of notes of what they have taught me so far."

"I really appreciate the tools you've given me," says P.J. Seiler, a prisoner for 16 years.

The inmates include three black men, a Latino and a Native American; a couple of the men are newcomers to San Quentin, most are lifers. All chose on their own to participate in the program, one of several operated under the aegis of the Insight Prison Project, which tries - against substantial odds - to emphasize rehabilitation rather than punishment as a goal of the prison system.

Verduin, a trained psychologist and therapist who has worked in the prison for eight years, says one reason he opposes closing San Quentin and building a substitute prison elsewhere is that such a prison would probably not be easily accessible to volunteer programs like his.

It might also be so far in the boondocks that family members would find it difficult to visit.

To hear the inmates tell it, family visitation helps them practice - and better understand - the skills they are learning in the anger management class.

When his wife comes to visit, says Antonio Molinar, he knows "how to be present," to hear what she is saying, to connect to her emotions, to "validate who she is." On their last visit, he says, "she said to me, 'What's going on with you? You're different.' And I am."

"My way of dealing with life was to put up a wall of anger," says Kenny Brydon, in and out of prison for 25 years, married for 14. "In this class I have been working on my male belief system, which I learned as a kid" - a system where males are dominant and women count for little. By changing those beliefs, he says, "my relationship with my wife has improved significantly ever since."

The men, guided by Verduin and Van Dyke, are learning to "take a deep breath" instead of striking out at whoever incites them to anger, an almost daily occurrence in prison, they say, and a reflex that led them to criminal violence in the past.

Robin Guillen has been in prison 30 years: "I came when I was 19, for murder." He describes himself as "a very violent man, a very violent boy, confused in every possible way. This program is very powerful. It's about healing wounds that we have suffered - that I suffered as a young man and that I inflicted on everyone else in my life."

Roy Prentice says he was "very violent" as a youth; "there was a female I pretty much abused." He grew up watching his mother beaten, his sisters beaten, "and I said I would never do that, but I fell right into the pattern." Now 40, he has sworn off violence, and gives much of the credit to IPP classes. "Trying to figure out what made me violent, I realize it wasn't the person I see before me, but something that happened long ago."

He has been in and out of prison for 20 years. "I'm tired. I'm honestly tired of it. I want to be a different person."

Don Cronk says he is tired of violence, too: "I have been violent to women, violent to society. Now I want to be a peacemaker.

"I'm beginning to understand why I am the way I am. I look inside myself, not only at the person that was there, but hoping to find a way out. I've robbed society all my life, and this allows me a chance to be a giver."

Anger management is one of several programs conducted inside the prison by the Insight Prison Project. All are aimed at behavior change, and many emphasize mutual support and respect.