Press Release: GRIP Graduations During COVID

GRIP Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 31, 2021
Contact: Veronica Balsiero
Email: veronica@insight-out.org

The GRIP Training Institute congratulates graduates from 5 State Prisons for their tenacity in the face of the chaotic and deadly conditions caused by the COVID pandemic.

The GRIP program transforms lives. GRIP stands for Guiding Rage into Power. Traditionally a yearlong, intensive and face-to-face restorative justice program, GRIP shifted half-way through the program to being an individualized correspondence course, after the prisons were locked down due to COVID 19 last March. Facing extreme fear, illness and isolation, these students — mostly serving life sentences for violent crimes — delved deeply into their personal histories of abuse, trauma, and violence; wrote extensive assignments taking responsibility for the harms they committed in their communities; and learned to practice tools of mindfulness and emotional intelligence.

“I never thought that sitting back, sobbing and crying would be a river flow of acceptance of a recent death. Letting my emotions flow was my link to my healing from grief, accepting that I am human, and that I too will be the cause of someone’s grief (my own departure). I’m resolved to love everyone I can possibly love while on this journey.”
— MV, Corcoran State Prison.

Jovencio Camacho recently completed the program at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, CA, and was released in late January 2021. He served 10 years on a 12 year sentence. Nine days before Jovencio was released he tested positive for COVID 19. On the day of his release the CDCR transported him to a hotel to quarantine and said he was on his own. He is now working in the community in a food production company and spends time with his family and his son. He is looking forward to getting married and being a family man.

“I appreciate having my family by my side the whole time. I also appreciate all the little things in life the most.”
— Jovencio Camacho

Bernard Moss is a former lifer, he served 28 years and was released from San Quentin in 2016. He currently is a GRIP staff member serving as the re-entry coordinator assisting people coming out of incarceration and facilitating the GRIP program in three prisons. “I am so proud of our students this year — the program is hard to complete at any time, but to do this kind of deep emotional work when you’re locked up, can’t see your family, in the middle of a deadly pandemic is just extraordinary.”

The GRIP (Guiding Rage into Power) program is a one-year comprehensive healing and accountability program. Our mission is to transform violence and suffering into healing and learning for incarcerated people, survivors of
violence, and children/families impacted by incarceration. We envision prisons as rehabilitation universities, where incarcerated people learn how to heal violence and victims have the chance to heal the wounds caused by crime. One of the largest restorative justice programs in the state prisons, this trauma-informed program draws from 25 years of best-practices and integrates cutting edge brain research into a methodology offered to hundreds of people incarcerated in 5 state prisons, including San Quentin and Aveal, which suffered the most extreme COVID outbreaks in the United States. Students are largely serving sentences of Life with or without parole. Through GRIP, they learn to stop their violence, cultivate mindfulness, develop emotional intelligence and understand victim impact. At the end of the year, they sign a pledge for life to be PeaceMakers. We have a 99.7% program success rate!

Independent studies have shown GRIP’s effectiveness; we have a recidivism rate 10 times better than the state’s, we are saving taxpayers millions of dollars, and saving lives by preventing revictimization.

Preventing revictimization: Since 2012, GRIP has graduated 913 students. Of these, 369 graduates have been found suitable and released. Only one GRIP graduate has returned to prison (to our knowledge), leading to a recidivism rate of 0.3%.

Cost effectiveness: GRIP is saving money and lives. In California it costs $81,000 per year to incarcerate a human being. By no longer incarcerating 369 GRIP Graduates, taxpayers save $30 million per year. According to the state auditor’s report in 2019, it cost CDCR $8,500 per student to run their rehabilitation programs (with no apparent improvement in recidivism rates), while it costs GRIP only $2500 per student.

Turning the corner into 2021, incarcerated people and staff are getting vaccinated, COVID outbreaks are becoming less and less. A forced herd immunity as a result of not being able to be physically distant becomes a welcome relief. Celebration for survival, while learning to make peace with the uncontrollable circumstances created by a system that demands accountability but lacks the ability to hold itself accountable. We celebrate the peacemakers who graduated GRIP, having to put to work the skills they learned.

GRIP Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GRIP Press Archives

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A Pledge to Give Back

Psychologist Helps San Quentin Prisoners Find Freedom Through Self-Reflection

Deconstructing Our Culture of Violence

The Wisdom of Cherishing Sentient Beings Everywhere