Formerly incarcerated mental health care providers are supplementing traditional resources for those still in prison\u2014with mutually beneficial results.<\/p>\n
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<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nShawanna Vaughn fights prisons with equal amounts of forgiveness and fury. The forgiveness she offers is one that she hopes everyone will embrace \u2014 one that sees people who have committed harm as wounded, not evil, and that can become the basis for prioritizing healing over punishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She even extends forgiveness to the man who killed her brother.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not?\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not the norm. How about we try something else? How about we try the thing that\u2019s never tried?\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaughn reserves her fury for the prison system as a whole, one that torments those wounded people further, releasing them in worse condition than when they entered, if they\u2019re released at all. She\u2019s been there too, having spent five years in prison herself.<\/p>\n
Through her small nonprofit\u00a0Silent Cry<\/a>, Vaughn battles that system \u2014 one often unwelcoming or even hostile to ideas of forgiveness \u2014 to change it radically. While education, housing, and employment have long made up the pillars of reentry, Vaughn is among a growing movement of formerly incarcerated people who see this list as incomplete.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t deal with the mental health aspect of it, what good is [having a] job?\u201d says Mannie Thomas, co-executive director and director of programming for the transformative justice organization\u00a0Success Stories<\/a>, and previously incarcerated himself. \u201c[We\u2019re talking about] dealing with the root problem\u00a0so that\u00a0<\/em>I can maintain the job,\u00a0so that<\/em>\u00a0I can maintain healthy relationships,\u00a0so that<\/em>\u00a0I can be part of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n Advocates like Vaughn and Thomas survived prison\u2019s harms and the lack of non-carceral options available in Black communities specifically. For them, fighting incarceration means draining the U.S. prison system of its fuel: trauma. To do it, they\u2019re supplementing traditional resources with mental health care before, during, and after incarceration, using their experiences to change lives through mutually beneficial approaches. Their aim, Vaughn says, is saving generations of children \u2014 particularly Black children \u2014 from \u201cthe cage and the grave.\u201d<\/p>\n The connection between trauma and incarceration runs deep. A\u00a02016 study<\/a>\u00a0found that people reporting four or more traumatic experiences were five times more likely to be incarcerated than those reporting none. Around\u00a030-60% of incarcerated men exhibit PTSD symptoms<\/a>, and a\u00a02020 Urban Institute study<\/a>\u00a0found the same for more than 50% of women. The harm, perpetuated both by other incarcerated people and staff,\u00a0only continues inside prison walls<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing about [prison] is rehabilitative,\u201d Vaughn says. \u201cIt is human carnage. You might go there whole, and you come out fractured and broken.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet there\u2019s growing evidence that programs confronting trauma can transform behaviors in both currently and formerly incarcerated people. This is particularly true when they\u2019re peer-led, and when those receiving services work with credible partners who deeply understand them. The service providers themselves interrupt cycles of harm while making a living amends.\u00a0<\/p>\n This healing loop has a strong psychological basis, rooted in ideas like\u00a0helper therapy<\/a>,\u00a0creative restitution<\/a>\u00a0and the \u201cwounded healer\u201d \u2014 a Jungian theory suggesting that mental health providers seek out the profession in part due to their own wounds.<\/p>\n Dr. Thomas LeBel, chair and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee\u2019s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, has studied this idea of a healing loop. Surveying formerly incarcerated service providers at New York reentry organizations, he found increased life and relationship satisfaction, and decreased feelings of personal stigma and fear of rearrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not just talking the talk, they\u2019re walking the walk,\u201d LeBel says. \u201cIt\u2019s everything you could want\u2026. The main point [is], and I\u2019m not the first person to say [it]: encourage the systems to allow this to occur.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Personal experience can impart a sense of courage and duty says Dr. Coralanne Griffith-Hunte, a colleague of Vaughn\u2019s and a human, industrial and trauma psychologist.\u00a0<\/p>\n Formerly incarcerated people can, \u201cbecome now this \u2018hope-ambassador\u2019 to try to speak to those going through [trauma] to say, \u2018Listen, our experience will not be the same, but I want you to know you\u2019re not alone, this is what helped me, it may help you. I\u2019m willing to offer you the information from my lived experience.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n One such \u201chope ambassador,\u201d Clover Perez, used her experience to found A Beautiful Heart Ministries. During her own incarceration, Perez was shocked to see high recidivism rates, with women released and returning, churning through the system in cycles of trauma, grief and harm.<\/p>\n Shortly before her incarceration, Perez\u2019s son was murdered. As she mourned, she found that helping women on the inside to grow healthier became her purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI kept asking God, \u2018Why? Why did you take my son?\u2019\u201d says Perez. \u201cAnd I heard it so clearly. I was on my knees praying and I was crying, and I heard the voice that said, \u2018I took one so you can help save many.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Now Perez\u2019s work happens through ABHM, a Long Island-based nonprofit, built on a series of curricula tailored to formerly incarcerated women. These range from workshops called \u2018She Writes Her Trauma,\u2019 in which women pen letters to a humanized version of their trauma, to an immersive six-month cohort during which multiple facilitators address spirituality, life skills and mental health. Though small, ABHM works both independently and with partners like the Brooklyn District Attorney.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018You know what? I will not waste my trauma. If I have to go through this, I better, at the end of the day, have something to show for it,\u2019\u201d says Perez. \u201cGoing into prison and seeing so many women suffering\u2026 I made a conscious choice. I wanted to go through the pain. I wanted it to count for something.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For Dr. Griffith-Hunte, this communal journeying is ideal. Healing, she says, \u201clooks like empathy, not just expressing it to someone, but being empathetic to ourselves.\u201d She adds, \u201cunderstanding that healing isn\u2019t just for that person over there but that I can get it too [by] being honest, being accountable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Ucedrah Osby found such reciprocal healing inside prison, though not during her own incarceration. Osby chanced upon a flier at a parole check-in for substance abuse counseling classes through a local university. In 2015, she took those skills\u2014 and her story \u2014 into group sessions at a men\u2019s prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cInitially, I was fearful,\u201d recalls Osby, now the president of the Bakersfield, California chapter of\u00a0All of Us or None<\/a>, \u201cbecause either you\u2019re gonna get critiqued [by those in the prison], or you\u2019re gonna get people who just don\u2019t say anything. You don\u2019t know what that\u2019s gonna do to your group.\u201d<\/p>\n Having lived it, Osby understands their skepticism. They don\u2019t need theory, she says \u2014 they need a new way of living.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s say I\u2019m selling drugs,\u201d she says, putting herself in the shoes of the men she is helping. \u201cWhen it\u2019s time for me to have a conversation about me wanting to do something else, I need to know you were in my shoes. I need to know you were down and dirty, just like how I was, because your story, the tools that you used, are gonna be the ones that I\u2019m gonna use because I know that they worked. You\u2019re here. You\u2019re living proof.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Over time, offering herself as \u201cliving proof,\u201d of recovery, the men\u2019s skepticism blossomed into openness that aided Osby\u2019s own healing. \u201cI\u2019m not completely healed and it\u2019s been about 20 years,\u201d says Osby. \u201cIt\u2019s a process, but I\u2019m a lot closer than I was.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While research remains scarce on small-scale organizations like Vaughn\u2019s and Perez\u2019s, that\u2019s not the case for the work of Dr. Stephanie Covington, a clinician and author.\u00a0<\/strong>Covington was working in addiction recovery when she met a prison warden at a conference in the 1980s. At that time, she was redesigning women\u2019s treatment at the Betty Ford Center \u2014 a \u201cplum job\u201d she says. Hearing about the need for services, Covington persuaded the warden to let her spend \u201ca couple days\u201d in the prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt changed the trajectory of my work,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI came out of there thinking, \u2018This is my work to do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, Covington has created a variety of programs for both inside and outside prisons centered on changing behavior by addressing trauma. While she isn\u2019t formerly incarcerated herself, she sees peer co-facilitation as one way to increase the success of a program. Working with a group of around 25 incarcerated women, Covington workshopped what would eventually become her curricula.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI would start developing exercises because all the curricula had interactive exercises, and then we would do it. I\u2019d say, \u2018Ok I came up with this exercise. What do you think?\u2019 And sometimes [the incarcerated women] would say \u2018Stephanie that\u2019s just awful and ridiculous.\u2019 Or they\u2019d say, \u2018That\u2019s really powerful. Keep that.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Working with women inside prison, \u201cit became clear to me that any program addressing the violence women had committed would also need to address the aggression and violence they had personally experienced,\u201d\u00a0she wrote<\/a>\u00a0in a newsletter describing the results of her work.<\/p>\n Her bedrock program, Beyond Violence, is now used in women\u2019s prisons in multiple countries and has been successfully adapted to men\u2019s prisons, with\u00a0studies showing<\/a>\u00a0notable reductions in\u00a0depression, PTSD symptoms, anger and aggression, and more<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Liz Campbell was offered Beyond Violence in solitary confinement. Like many on the inside, prison hadn\u2019t rehabilitated her, and she found herself replicating the patterns that landed her there. But BV clicked.<\/p>\n \u201cIt saved my life,\u201d she said bluntly. \u201cI had never heard this information before. Ever. Anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n BV allows people to understand \u201chow they got there,\u201d Campbell says, by examining the interactions between their inner life and their communities, relationships, and societal systems. Freed of shame, judgement, and punishment, incarcerated participants find meaning in their story and choice in their behavior. Those revelations unlock different ways of living.<\/p>\n Campbell became a BV peer facilitator while inside prison, a process that helped her break harmful cycles while helping others do the same. \u201cBeing able to examine all those aspects [of one\u2019s life], one is able to peel the layers back,\u201d she explains. \u201cWhen a person looks at that and is able to put those pieces together\u2026 they\u2019re able to understand how they became who they became, and then what is it going to take to become who they want to become.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas\u2019s organization, Success Stories functions similarly. Incarcerated men meet for one 2-hour session weekly for 12 weeks. Working in small groups, they investigate the personal impacts of toxic masculinity. According to Thomas, they develop both \u201cemotional capacity\u201d and connect their attitudes to life goals. Facilitators provide the space and safety for reflection and vulnerability\u2014opportunities that are painfully uncommon in prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n The program has had such a successful track record that it has grown from one California prison to eleven, and Thomas says he sees participants changing dramatically, embracing complicated and vulnerable parts of themselves and each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople try to say that\u2019s utopian,\u201d he says. \u201cAlright, well tell me that when you have a Black gang member and a White supremacist walking the yard together having a conversation. You can\u2019t tell me that\u2019s utopian when I\u2019m watching it.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, he admits results are hard to quantify. Funding for programs is sparse, and funding to study them is almost nonexistent.<\/p>\n Added to that, the work is slow and often hard to scale. Despite showing success, even accessing prisons remains a barrier. Prison rules can prevent previously incarcerated people from coming back as service providers. On a personal level, regularly exploring trauma can be exhausting and painful.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The extra layer of connection, so useful in helping people relate, can also backfire. \u201cThe flip side that I\u2019ve seen at programs, because so many people have had substance use issues,\u201d LeBel observes, is \u201cif [a provider] relapses or does get arrested for another crime. That can be pretty devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n Those who see the value in such programs don\u2019t shy away from these challenges. They see them as part of a decades-long struggle against a merciless system. \u201cYou always hear financial advisors talking about legacy wealth, legacy building,\u201d Vaughn says. \u201cTo me\u2026 legacy building is making sure five generations of Black children after me will not see prison.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Vaughn\u2019s advocacy has birthed a bill, sponsored, but still sitting in committee in the New York State Legislature. If passed, it would require a \u201ccomprehensive, dynamic and individualized case management plan\u201d for everyone in NY prisons, she explains. Reentry planning would begin within one week, and the Department of Corrections would have to publish an annual progress report.<\/p>\n The bill itself exists as a metaphor for change.\u00a0Assembly Bill A6144<\/a>\u00a0could entirely redesign mental health in New York prisons. If passed, it would do so as the \u201cPost-traumatic prison disorder Shawanna W76337 act\u201d \u2014 Vaughn\u2019s prison ID number.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOvercoming systemic -isms and ills is hard work, it\u2019s painful,\u201d says Vaughn. But, \u201cthe outcome of creating healthier people for tomorrow is worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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