Project Return
 Project
Return is the direct result of a three-year in-prison research
study that demonstrated the efficacy of a community-building
intervention technique in the improvement of reading scores
of inmates and as a method for reducing major and minor disciplinary
infractions within the institution. The study also examined
the issues of employment, violence, and recidivism. Begun
in 1989, the research design was developed by Dr. Robert E.
Roberts, director of Project Return.
What began as an experiment that benefited a few hundred
prisoners in Louisiana grew into Project Return in New Orleans,
a program affiliated with Tulane Medical Center's School of
Public Health and Tropical Medicine. A five-year study by
the Metropolitan Crime Commission certified Project Return
as the most effective re-entry program ever, with only 25%
of alumni returning to prison, as opposed to 75% of those
not in the program. For an investment of $5 million over five
years, the Commission calculated taxpayers had saved $209
million in reduced crime, court costs, and prison costs.
Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead
Man Walking, has had this to say: "I was privileged
to participate in the community circle of Project Return once,
and I grasped immediately the source for its success –
community. People gathered together, vulnerable, connecting
to each other, finding their voices and sharing their lives
in simple honesty."
Project Return website: http://www.projectreturn.com
Bob Roberts has written a book, My
Soul Said to Me, chronicling his experiences with the
birth and growth of Project Return.
My Soul Said to Me website:
http://mysoulsaidtome.com
Community Transitions
 "Community
Transitions assists juveniles in the criminal justice system
make choices for change through accountability, responsibility
and self-discovery. Through the use of methodology which has
proven four times more effective than most other programs
with adult prisoners and ex-offenders in reducing violence
while incarcerated and lowering the recidivism rate of those
released, Community Transitions offers hope for effective
treatment of juvenile offenders."
Community Transitions runs a 65-day program that begins with
2-day Community Building circles, followed by a series of
learning sessions, designed to:
- Assist in creating an environment in a person’s
life within a community of peers where they are able to
face, for themselves, who they are and who they wish to
become.
- Teach positive forms of socialization and character-development
which build on the existing strengths of an individual and
are reinforced within a community accountability setting.
- Provide training in responding to and instituting life
changes through the development of healthy connections with
others.
Community Transitions website: http://www.communitytransitions.org |
The
purpose of the Our Mother Earth Foundation is to buy back
land in the central part of North America, restore it to its
natural state, and thus create sacred space that all beings
can visit. They hold the belief that humans, especially those
of us in Western culture, have taken much from the Earth,
and that this effort to give something back, by enabling the
Earth to regain her original nature, will demonstrate appreciation
for her wonderful gifts and will benefit all sentient beings
everywhere.