May All the Children Live As Children

Michele Benzamin-Miki

It was just another weekly visit to Central Juvenile Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Mr. Russell is showing us the Special Lock Down Unit that he is now in charge of. He opened the door to one of the solitary confinement rooms. I walked into the small room furnished with bed, toilet and a sink. A solid door closed behind me with a peephole window and a camera seated above the door behind a protective screen. In the back of the room there was a window tightly screened in with bars behind it. I stood there for a moment in the middle of this room barely able to breathe, as the room was hot and stagnant, and I felt a bit claustrophobic. A sadness came over me that the staff member picked up on and he said, "It is prison." I made no comment, and in silence wondered how I, let alone a child, would feel locked up in this room. We then went to the monitor room, in which there were some screens viewing into two rooms like this, now occupied with small bodies wrapped up completely under the sheets, motionless during the whole time we were there. We were informed that these kids are here 24 to 48 hours for disciplinary reasons or under careful watch if they are suicidal.

We then were led down a long corridor. There were some tennis shoes neatly standing at attention by the doors, propped up against the wall on the tip of their toes. These were the long term residents. This unit holds the kids too violent or suicidal to be in with the other kids, and the older, high risk offenders waiting for court sentencing, as well as the ones that are under the witness protection program. Well the tour was over, and we all were happy to see the light of day as we walked out of the unit into the courtyard. Mr. Russel smiling as he walked us out, saying, "I hope we can start a meditation program here."

Mr. Russel is the program director of "Excel," which is a part of the institutions schooling program, as well a recruitment of volunteers and organizations teaching peace education to the high risk incarcerated youth here. This is one of the largest Juvenile Halls in the world, holding over 900 boys and a small minority of girls about 40 to 60.

Many members of our Ordinary Dharma Sangha are now teaching meditation at Central Juvenile Hall through our "Jizo Project." We are enjoying the spirit of working with other Buddhist organizations such as the, International Buddhist Meditation Center and Zen center of Los Angeles, in programs that cover the older high risk offenders in the KL unit incarcerated for violent crimes, and Omega girls unit, and CD younger boys unit, and occasionally, the special unit devoted to youth with misdemeanor offenses.

We have also a very special relationship with the Catholic Chaplain in the prison. Harvier Stauring is a Lay Chaplain, who supports our work, and offers his church space to our longer days of mindfulness and peace programs and lectures. The church is in an enclosed area in the middle of the prison, and is a peaceful setting for mindfulness practice. We have found that we share a common goal, helping the kids be in this place, and giving them choices and alternatives for not returning, and especially, coping with their home life.

On a more personal note, I am deeply moved every visit I make to this facility. I have worked with a wide range of kids in this place, but my choice and circumstances have put me in CD, the younger boys unit. Mr. Russel refers to this unit as the test for all programs. These kids need meditation the most! He says.

The youngest boy I've worked with here was an 8 year old, very hyperactive, talkative, tiny, thin, wiry boy with wide eyes and furrowed brow. This boy was in need of a lot of attention, and was afraid to close his eyes during the meditation (This is not unusual, so I now give the kids an option to leave eyes open, and focus with soft eyes on a still point in front of them) The boy seemed so stressed for his age. I stayed with him and tried moving from various techniques to teach him how to relax, and he eventually calmed down, to the whole groups surprise. I later found out that this boy was put in solitary confinement because of the overflow in the unit yesterday, and attempted to take his life, and here I am the next day teaching him how to meditate. His short life experience has been gang related, malnutrition and on drugs, and stealing. The general rule when working with the kids is not to ask them any questions about there crimes, but sometimes that information is offered by the staff in special cases. I don't need to know how they got here. What I see, when I look at them, is children, wanting so desperately to be children, to be guided, make mistakes, to grow and learn, and most of all, be happy.

I usually work with groups of between 6 to 20 kids for 2 hours at a time. It is a testimony to these kids ability to focus as well as my ability to be flexible, resourceful and forbearing. The usual age in this unit is 11 to 16, and I am amazed at their street smarts and range of life experiences.

What grounds me, is to see the young boy in all of them, and talk to the part of them that desires to be a kid, do kid things, and hold kid dreams. Most of them worry so much about court cases, their families and when their going to get out, and it is hard to sleep in the units with the 24 hour activities. They are all in need of a good night sleep, so I teach them relaxation and lying down meditation, following their breath with their hands on their stomach, feeling the rising and falling in their belly, and saying the words I relax and smile, or counting themselves to sleep. They also get pepper sprayed a lot in this unit because of their inability to control themselves with staff and each other, fights erupt a lot. We talk about anger, and I teach them how to stop and breathe deeply, counting to 10, and see that it is not worth it to act out our anger and get pepper sprayed. A lot of the kids are in for drug use, so I show them a way to get naturally high through the breath, yoga and chanting. Many of them miss their family, so I teach them how to visit their loved ones through a guided Loving Kindness Meditation that they can later do on their own. Many of the kids are Christian, so I refer to the loving kindness meditation as another form of prayer. I use the 5 Mindfulness training (Buddhist precepts) and discuss some aspects of them with the kids, especially right speech. There are many benefits to speaking kindly or practicing silence and listening, and much of the fighting they get into with each other and the trouble with staff comes from unskillful speech. The teacher from the Excel program prepares the kids for my visit before I come each Wednesday and keeps me informed on the changes in the kids after I leave. Meditation has a strong and positive effect, she says.

Since the program has been so successful in this special unit and many of our practitioners from "Ordinary Dharma" are not just viewing but committing to teaching one day during the week, Mr. Russel has asked me to work with the small but growing population of young girls in the Omega Unit. More girl's are being sent to the juvenile halls, as the facilities and means of taking care of this population are no longer available.

The girls are segregated from the boys and are in the older part of this prison architecture. They receive a lot of special programs, yet they are the most difficult to work with as most of the girls are pregnant and highly emotional and Mr. Russel was not sure they would want to meditate. I had to talk up the program in their classroom and to all of our surprise the girls responded well.

The girls unit was a large room with all 60 of the girls sleeping in bunk beds, and a woman warden and her assistant. Those girls that wanted to participate gathered in a big circle on the floor, and I start the group each time with a council form of checking in to see how the girls are doing, before we start meditation. With a colorful stuffed animal to pass around the circle as a talking object, and the instruction that anyone holding the toy had the opportunity to speak and everyone else was to give her full attention and listen only. Each person would begin with the awareness of her Breath, breathing deep and slow three times as she holds the stuffed animal, and check in, first to her experience in her physical body, then what is she thinking and what is the state of her thoughts, and last, what are the emotions present. Then describe using only one word, each of the categories, the body, the mind, and the emotions, three words total. This was a form of meditation and grounding for the group that helped them listen to one another and feel safe in speaking.

We would spend allot of time in guided mediations, and the girls responded especially well to the Loving kindness meditations and reflections. The Loving kindness reflections were given in the traditional Southeast Asian Buddhist way, starting with oneself, and then someone easy to extend love towards. Later I would introduce extending kind thoughts to a person they did not know so well, neutral to them, and then when they were ready, extending it out to someone they were having difficulty with.

Eventually it expanded to the other girls in the room, and if they were pregnant, their unborn child, the warden and staff, and others here at the facility.

Loving kindness meditation with the boys seemed a lot more work and explanation, but it always came down to understanding the deep connection between the victim and the oppressor. When someone is free from their suffering, delusion, fear, then they don't make you suffer any more, you too become free. Understanding this changes the way you respond to them in your thoughts first, and can help greatly when or if confronting them in person. I told many stories and used teachings on compassion, in which there are many in the Buddhist context, to help the boy's understand others suffering and connect it with their own. It helped to connect the forgiveness component of Loving kindness contemplations, understanding and forgiving a person does not mean you condone their actions or what they have done in the past.

Overall the Loving kindness meditation was the most empowering and transformative of all the tools. It helped the young folks visit freely their loved ones and places of peace in their imagination, when the environment of the prison was unbearable.

The toughest, yet yielding the most consistent contact over long periods of time was within the high risk offenders units. In these units I could give more instruction on meditation and dialogue on a personal level with the boys, as the guard was never inside the room. These boys were in waiting court trials and sentencing and some were being held until they were old enough to go to prison. I reminded the boys of the power of their imagination, and to direct it in useful ways. Instead of a reckless spin to all kinds of horrible scenarios and stories, that fuel anger, hatred and despair, it can free you, regardless of the outcome of the courts sentencing.

I myself understand that one visit from someone who cares means a lot to a young person, and can be the thread that can save a young persons life in the future, and this is what keeps me fresh and feeling undefeated by the Juvenile Justice system and courts.

Often times I get only one opportunity to work with these young people, on occasion three or four times, and then they are gone. The Juvenile Halls are a place where the kids are held waiting for a sentence or some placement. They do not serve time here, even though in some circumstances the older ones are here a long time, some years before placement.

There are Probation Camps, Mentor Programs and the Community Based Organizations, on the outside, that help a high risk youth to find there way back into society. I now continue to do my work in these environments. These such programs are still offered in Central Juvenile Hall today.

In closing I would like to offer a few gems spoken by the younger boys in the CD unit when I asked them, what are the benefits of meditation. It helps you relax, focus, open your mind, pray, see your loved ones, go home, get a good nights sleep, deal with anger, sadness, and one beauty of an 11 year old boy looked at me quite seriously and said, It helps you get in touch with your feminine side.

Our youth play an integral part in the future of our communities and the larger scale of the global communities of this planet and we have a responsibility to give them the tools to contribute to society and be free from incarceration and live fully and peaceably.