By TRAVIS PITTMAN / KING5.com
Yoga Behind Bars founder Shaina Traisman teaches balance and breathing to a group of male inmates in 10 South at the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle.
SEATTLE – In a small room on the tenth floor of the King County Correctional Facility, seven men dressed in red inmate uniforms sit on a floor, legs crossed, eyes closed, palms pressed together in deep concentration.
They're doing something many people on the outside do every day after a busy day dealing with work or the kids.
They are learning yoga.
Shaina Traisman founded the non-profit program Yoga Behind Bars four-and-a-half years ago with the purpose of giving her students tools to prepare them to successfully integrate back into society. She believes regardless of whether someone has committed a serious crime, everyone deserves a chance to change.
"Yoga advocates non-judgment," says Traisman. "That's why when I come in here, I don't look at people as criminals. I come in to offer them the same thing I offer to somebody on the outside. I think that practice has a ripple effect. That's one of the foundational teachings in yoga is to first, approach yourself with non-judgment, then to approach others with non-judgment."
Related Content Slide show: Yoga Behind Bars
Yoga Behind Bars website
What is Karma Yoga?
Every Wednesday, Traisman comes into the jail, grabs a cart loaded down with a boom box for music, yoga mats, small carpets and some pamphlets on yoga she has put together. She makes her way through a maze of elevators and security doors, past the stares of inmates and guards, into the small room to teach men and women who, for one reason or another, have found themselves on the wrong side of the law.
And for this, she gets paid nothing.
Yoga Behind Bars is one of the dozens of volunteer programs offered at the King County Jail, as well as the Regional Justice Center in Kent, to help inmates look at things with a fresh perspective and avoid finding themselves back in this same place after they get out.
"People are in here for all different reasons," says Traisman. "Some people have committed hard crimes. Other people have committed of desperation, acts of desperation. Whatever the reason may be, everybody deserves a chance to change and to have all these different programs offered."
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Quianna, 25. "It’s...a way to deal with the thoughts that you have in a way that turns negativity into positivity."
In the area known as 10 South, Traisman can fit up to 14 men in the very cramped quarters of the multi-purpose room. It's not much larger than the master bedroom of an average home. The floor of this yoga studio is cold concrete. The only view out the metal slats covering the lone window is cars whizzing by on Interstate 5. Someone has tagged one of the walls with gang graffiti, written in pencil.
The yoga mats are lined up side by side, practically touching one another. On this day however, only seven inmates show up, so there is a little more elbow room.
Traisman wants her students to feel important by knowing their names, so she makes sure to go around the room, asking them their names and something about themselves. She goes back over the names aloud several times, locking them into memory.
Throughout the session, Traisman has her students focus particularly on their breathing, from the time she opens class, through each change of position and pose, up until the very end.
The inmates react with groans and gasps as they try to emulate Traisman's movements. Many of them likely haven't taken yoga before coming into the jail – this may even be their first class. Most are very vocal in their reactions. When she asks what language she sometimes speaks, some of them immediately yell out "Sanskrit," an ancient Indian dialect.
The most vocal is Troy, a 35-year-old admitted drug addict with hopes of staying clean and getting married once he's released. As a former Army soldier, Troy should be used to physical demands. But after one particularly difficult move in this class, he says "that was an accomplishment."
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Troy, 35. "You can say words in the language (Sanskrit) and really feel the effect."
"They think it’s a soft sport," Troy says about people who may laugh at the fact he is taking yoga. "They don’t really see the beauty in it to where the breathing exercises, the stretching exercises come in handy to daily life."
For Traisman, teaching is not just about the physical, but getting her students to look inward. It's especially important for these students. She teaches a style called Vinyasa Flow, but that's just the physical aspect. Traisman says more importantly, she teaches Karma Yoga, which she says means "selfless service."
"In Karma Yoga, one of the primary teachings is that man is threefold in nature: knowing, willing and desire," says Traisman. "People have had profound experiences in the classes where it literally does spark something in them to encourage change or growth or more introspection.”
In describing Karma Yoga, the late Indian spiritual leader Sri Swami Sivananda said once a person desires something, the person thinks how to get it then exerts himself or herself to possess it.
Troy desires to kick his drug habit, so he's trying to accomplish that by taking advantage of some of the other 32 programs offered at the jail besides yoga. He's involved in Narcotics Anonymous. He's also taking a class on black history and culture for men which focuses on getting inmates to look within themselves to question their behavior and attitudes. Men of all races are allowed to attend.
After her 90 minutes teaching the men, Traisman's work is not done. Through another maze of elevators and security doors and she finds herself in 4 West where the women live. This area is a little more open. Women are walking around a little more freely than the men with a guard desk right in the middle of the room.
The multi-purpose room here is a little larger – 17 women can attend a class here – but the floor is just as cold and the glass on the window is not clear, so there's no view at all. The women are very helpful, laying out mats for Traisman and plugging in her stereo. The reasons they take this class vary.
“We’re cooped up here 24/7 in a small space with a lot of women, and it’s just and opportunity to get out and relieve some of the stress and get some positive aspects to jail life," says Karla, a 51-year-old in for DUI. "Everything is pretty negative here, and this is one place you can go and free your mind up a little bit and just get out of the tank aspect for an hour every week."
Thea, a 40-year-old drug addict, takes the class under a doctor's recommendation. Her habit has left her with chronic illnesses.
Class begins with the women saying "Aum" three times in harmony, again with breathing as the focus.
Focus is something Kelley, a 27-year-old in for DUI, is looking for. "I’ve always had a hard time controlling my "monkey mind'" (a name her mom gave for Kelley's tendency to bounce between thoughts). "I’ve always been like that since I was a child and I never tried to deal with it before."
Throughout the class, the women struggle with some of the moves just as the men did. A number of these inmates have been in this class before so they handle it better than others, whether it's Down dog, where the student turns her body into a living arch, or Warrior III, in which the student stands on one leg while the rest of her body is parallel to the floor. At the end, she has them lie on their backs, telling them "let the Earth receive your body."
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Traisman tells the women "let the earth receive your body" at the end of class.
Rebecca is a 44-year-old who's in for prostitution. She's a mother of six and grandmother to 3-year-old and has had it with being in and out of jail for the past 10 years. She's engaged and vows this is the last time she'll be behind bars. But she's also dealing a much more traumatic experience. Rebecca says she survived an attack by Green River Killer Gary Ridgway in 1982. Twenty-five years later, she's hoping what she learns from Traisman will help her deal with that.
"I feel the negative get out of my brain. I start fresh every time we come here."
Even hearing these stories, Traisman has to keep her distance. She treats the inmates like any other students she has on the outside, talking to them in a friendly, accepting manner. At the same time, she needs to keep the relationships she creates here locked up in the jail, whether it's by her choice or due to regulations placed on her by the jail. She says many times, men will join the class because a woman is teaching it, so she purposely dresses up in the ugliest thing possible as a kind of wall. When one of the women inmates asks where she teaches on the outside, Traisman simply tells the inmate she's not allowed to say.
Officer R. Coates has watched over the women for 10 years. She sees the benefits. "They’re a little more relaxed and a little more inclined to talk and it’s something I encourage them to do – talk instead of kind of fight it out, cat it out," says Coates. "And Shaina is really good at that. She talks to the ladies as ladies instead of inmates and she treats them as people.”
"Generally, people will walk away with something they didn’t expect to get," says Traisman, "so that’s what I focus on more than why they’re there, and people are generally surprised with what yoga is about."
Progressive programs at KCCF
The King County Jail offers 33 different programs to give inmates a chance to make a change in their lives, with the prime goal being to keep them from having to come back to the concrete walls.
"The importance of these programs is the impact they can make on an inmate to ensure that hopefully they won't return to incarceration," says jail spokesperson Major William Hayes.
Traisman says the rate of recidivism – the rate in which convicts return to incarceration – is 60 to 70 percent in the United States, compared with 50 percent in the United Kingdom.
"The United States tends to have more of an approach of punishment than creating programs for rehabilitation," says Traisman. "But the King County Jail takes that approach, which is why it’s so progressive."
"Whether it's one inmate taking yoga or another inmate in our education program or some of the other programs, (the goal) is to make a significant impact on reducing our population and reducing the costs associated with incarcerating inmates."
“I want to be that one statistic that breaks away from that chain," says Troy, our male yoga student. "I’ll keep coming into the furnace and coming out looking like ashes.”
Some of the programs offered are contracted out, but most rely on volunteers.
The most popular programs are operated by some 30 religious service groups, providing denominational, non-denominational and inter-denominational services. More than 8,000 bibles were passed out to inmates who requested them last year.
Educational programs include Adult Basic Education, Education as a Second Language, and GED courses provided by Seattle Central Community College, King County Library System and other groups. In 2006, 37 inmates returned to freedom with a GED, something they didn't have when they walked in.
Through a juvenile education program with the assistance of Seattle Public Schools, two inmates got their high school diplomas last year.
One of the contracted programs is the Community Re-entry Adopt an Inmate Program (CRAIP), where inmates attend employment workshops and are then placed in jobs when they get out. The pay is above minimum wage, giving the inmates a chance to make an honest living. 168 inmates had jobs waiting for them when they were released.
Another contracted program is helps perpetrators as well as victims of domestic violence.
Some military veterans find themselves behind bars for a number of reasons, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The jail works with liaisons from Veterans Affairs, helping more than 300 find housing and jobs after their release. There is also Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, stress management and black history.
But in this facility filled with convicted criminals, there are innocent people directly affected – the inmates' children. Services are provided for pregnant inmates. Traisman even modifies her classes in case an expectant mom is in her class. And there is a reading program operated by the King County Library System in which inmates will read books aloud and have it recorded for their children at home to listen to. KCCF programs coordinator Karen Pohio says some of the other inmates will even join in by acting out some of characters, such as cows or pigs if the book is about animals.
While there isn’t much anecdotal or statistical evidence to show the success rates of the programs in reducing recidivism, the jail population has gone down over the past several years. According to the jail's website, the highest average number of inmates per day was 3,100 in May of 2000. By May of 2005, that number had fallen to just over 2,700.
Whether the programs make a difference, only the inmates can decide for themselves. Troy says he's determined to make it work.
"When you cross that realm of hitting the bricks, a lot of this is forgotten," says Troy, "A lot of people kick back in with old habits or their old ways. I’ve had enough of being sick-and-tired of being sick-and-tired. I don’t want to repeat this process. I’m 35-years-old. I’m tired of coming into institutions."
Volunteers: The unsung heroes
Like yoga, the majority of the programs at the King County Jail are run by volunteers.
"They're the unsung heroes," says Major Hayes. "We would only have two or three programs without them."
It's really no surprise. Seattle ranked fifth in the nation for volunteering in a recent government study.
Much of the equipment Traisman uses in her classes is donated by others. Yoga mats are expensive and they wear out. Every few weeks, Traisman calls on other local yoga studios to donate some of theirs. Her non-profit organization stays afloat through occasional events, grants and other fundraisers that will soon be posted on the Yoga Behind Bars Web site. The money keeps the program afloat, including bringing in help for Traisman. Another yoga instructor just joined, and four more are having their applications processed.
The core number of volunteers assist with Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and the numerous religious groups. More than 700 people give their time and resources to these programs alone.
"We couldn't sustain the costs that would be associated with paying these volunteers if they were under contract," says Hayes.
Traisman says Karma is about "not only our actions, but the result of our actions." Jail officials hope that the actions of her, other volunteers and the programs the jail contracts will result in a continued decline in the number of inmates.
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