PROGRAMS

The Jericho Circle Project offers three distinctive yet interrelated programs to meet the needs of men involved with the criminal justice system. Each of these programs is designed to operate in the context of existing correctional systems and their goals.

Jericho Integrity Circles
Meeting on a regular basis within institutions, these circles offer inmates useful and accessible tools to heal their wounds in the crucible of the prison setting. Accountability for behavior and integrity (congruence between what we say and what we do) is a cornerstone of the circle-building process. Within the prison circles, men are held accountable for their actions and commitments. By speaking and acting on their truth and touching basic feelings, men discover what it means to be authentic on every level. The purpose of this training is to prepare inmates to speak and “own” their emotions and behaviors in a setting which demands that they see themselves and others clearly. In addition, these circles help men develop critical skills in conflict resolution to safely and effectively express feelings without violence. The crisis of incarceration can motivate men to re-examine their lives and to explore new paths and directions. Jericho Integrity Circles provide safe containers for inmates to do this work.
Jericho Circle Intensive Initiations
There are few ways in which boys can be initiated as men in our culture. In traditional societies, boys entered into manhood through a ritual designed by mature men in their village or social group. The purpose of this ritual was to create a separation from their lives as boys, to expose them to an ordeal of self-discovery and to welcome them back into their community as initiated men. It is our belief that many young men in our society turn to crime and substance abuse because they have not experienced an effective initiation into manhood. Young men are hungry for guidance, mentoring and challenge from responsible men in their community. In the absence of this experience, men who are passing through and beyond adolescence frequently create their own “pseudo-initiations” (gang rituals, body marking, trials by violence to themselves and others, etc.). While these rites of passage are intended to prove the manhood of young men, they often end up doing the opposite—trapping these men in behaviors and environments that keep them in a state of dependency and take them further away from what it really means to be a man.
Within institutional settings, there are many opportunities to validate manhood in the wrong way.
Jericho Community Circles
The most difficult challenge that offenders face is reentry into their communities. The high risks of recidivism for returning offenders are conspicuous testimony to that fact. The coercive and numbing environment of institutions undermine the very skills that are so crucial to effective adjustment on the outside—flexibility, responsibility, self-awareness, and independence. Jericho Community Circles support men in the reentry process by bridging the circle and initiation work done within institutions with men’s circles operating on the outside. Men who have completed a minimum curriculum and/or initiation cycle within an institution are, with the supervision and guidance of after-care planners, integrated into men’s circles in the communities to which they return. These community circles help extend and strengthen the work that was started in the institutional setting. Community Circles enable men to integrate their ongoing work into their lives and face everyday problems with the support of initiated men who have similar life experience.
In contrast to the rituals that take men deeper into rule-breaking, JCP offers an intensive 3-5 day initiation experience that challenges and supports men in a journey of self-discovery. Through these intensive workshops, incarcerated men are able to become grounded in the present and see both their past and their future more clearly. They are given an opportunity to address obstacles that have kept them from maturing and learn tools to not only keep them more present, but to anchor them in more realistic, productive and responsible visions of the future.
Copyright Jericho Circle Project, Inc. 2003
P.O. Box 398045, Cambridge, MA 02139
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