How one man found his calling as a peacemaker, especially in prisons

Douglas Noll was a trial lawyer for 22 years, but since leaving the courtroom, he has taught mediation techniques to inmates through the organization he cofounded, Prison of Peace.

|
Courtesy of Douglas Noll
Douglas Noll and his colleagues have taught hundreds of inmates how to resolve conflicts.

This essay is part of an occasional series provided by our partner organization Encore.org, which is building a movement to tap the skills and experience of those in midlife and beyond to improve communities and the world. Read more stories and share yours at Encore.org/story.

My life really began after 50. I was a trial lawyer for 22 years. Through a gradual awakening, I realized that my calling was not in the courtroom, and in 2000, exactly two weeks after my 50th birthday, I left a successful trial practice in a major law firm to become a peacemaker.

Nearly a decade later, my colleague Laurel Kaufer received a request from an inmate serving time in a notorious facility, what was then the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, Calif.

The inmate wanted a professional mediator to teach 100 women sentenced to life without parole how to reduce the daily violence and conflict in the prison caused by gang members.

The request resonated deeply with me. I said to Laurel, “If this is for real, we should do it.”

Since turning to peacemaking, despite having mediated thousands of conflicts, I have faced ridicule, skepticism, and even hostility from my legal peers. Our culture views peacemaking as weak. I want to prove the naysayers wrong. If I can teach murderers to be peacemakers, no one can deny the power of mediation.

That’s how Prison of Peace began. Since 2009, Laurel and I have taught mediation techniques to hundreds of inmates. They, in turn, have touched the lives of thousands of other inmates and family members. Our 12-week curriculum cultivates empathy, problem-solving, and leadership skills. We help inmates who are emotionally shut down learn to open up and develop deep connections with others.

Our work has been established in four California prisons and the Los Angeles County jail system. With a grant from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for innovative programming, we’ll be launching Prison of Peace in six additional California prisons starting this spring. The Prison of Peace model has been reproduced in Greece, and programs are being planned in France and Italy.

I’ve also developed an online course, “It’s Pure Magic,” that teaches the fundamentals of the Prison of Peace curriculum. More than 1,000 people have taken it so far. And my fourth book, “De-Escalate: How to Calm an Angry Person in Seconds,” will be published in September. The book explains the skills we teach in Prison of Peace and how they apply to everyday life.

From its inception, Prison of Peace has empowered those who are incarcerated to be of service. Inmates progress from peacemaker to certified trainer, enabling them to create safer, more peaceful lives for themselves and others. By resolving conflicts and teaching the skills involved to their peers, Prison of Peace participants create durable programs in their institutions – and in their communities, after they return.

Prison of Peace welcomes participants serving life or long-term sentences; in fact, preference is given to those serving life without parole. Now, some people who’ve been released work with us, teaching peacebuilding skills in their communities.

I’m in my mid-60s now. I want to be passing on my knowledge, helping other people who have the passion to do this work. And I’m motivated to move it out of the prison environment and into the larger world. Shouldn’t we be teaching people the skills to prevent violence as soon as we possibly can?

If I can teach one kid, or one parent, how to listen – how to prevent violence and avoid prison – that’s powerful.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to How one man found his calling as a peacemaker, especially in prisons
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2017/0308/How-one-man-found-his-calling-as-a-peacemaker-especially-in-prisons
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe