About Us

The Insight Prison Project (IPP), since 1997, is a community based non-profit organization. It is dedicated to reducing recidivism, preventing re-victimization and serving public safety. IPP creates and conducts effective rehabilitation programs inside the prison, and supports the actual reinstatement of rehabilitation as the core operating principle within the California penal system. Through this unique act of civic engagement IPP serves as an initiative of social entrepreneurship to effect change in the large and ineffective bureaucracy of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.  The Insight Approach of four IPP core programs is deisnged to generate in participants a durable change of attitude and behavior.  The focus is on fostering durable self-transformation through awareness of and change in the inner conditions that led to incarceration.

What We Do

IPP is non-profit community organization working in collaboration with San Quentin State Prison to provide unique rehabilitation programs for self selected and motivated prisoners so that they can break the cycle of incarceration. IPP believes that as community members we have a responsibility to work with those in our community who do not live by the rules we have all agreed on. The key to IPP's success has been to invite the prisoners to become highly valued and integral stakeholders in every aspect of the learning process. Our diverse teaching staff of dedicated professionals and volunteers is committed to creating positive change both inside and outside the prison walls. We propose to shift the fixation on how much time should be done for a crime to what is done during the time of incarceration that effectively transforms criminogenic behavior, prevents re-victimization and serves public safety. We envision such an approach saves hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars. 

Combined skill sets include professional counseling and therapy, conflict resolution and mediation, 12-step programming, meditation, victim/offender training, former corrections and incarceration experience, anger-management training, yoga instruction, pre-parole planning, and gardening and landscaping.

The Need

More than 25 years ago, California enacted legislation [Penal code 1170 (a) (1)] stating that "the purpose of imprisonment for crime is punishment," essentially banning rehabilitation from the state's penal system. Since that time, the number of inmates in California's prisons has increased by 554 percent and the average annual cost to house, feed and guard a prisoner in a state prison is over $43,000/year. As of April 2008, California houses 174.000 prisoners. In addition, a whopping 70% of those who leave prison return within eighteen months of release. Though officially California has added rehabilitation to the correctional department's title, in reality it spends only 5% of its 10 billion dollar budget on rehabilitation programs.  IPP's contribution is to develop and conduct innovative in-prison programs - and train others to conduct these programs.  Here's some contect for our work:  There are four kinds of prisoner rehabilitation categories.  Academic, vocational, arts and recreation and behavioral. IPP's programs sit within the behavioral category. Within that category, our methodology hones in on addressing the entrenched habit patterns that trip up a prisoner regardless of his academic or vocational achievements.  Our motto?  "Leaving prison...before you get out." 

Transformation Re-Education Model

The goal of IPP programs is for prisoners to break their cycle of recidivism and avoid re-victimizing the public. Therefore, IPP's programs focus on a socialization process, a process of transformational re-education that is specially designed to bring about a shift in ingrained patterns of harmful and destructive behavior, enable men to make life-enhancing choices and integrate them into lasting, positive behavior. For many inmates, this is the first time they have been offered the opportunity to learn these life skills. There are three stages in this transformational process: developing the capacity for insight, practicing what is being learned while incarcerated, and integrating the new insights into durable behavioral change. The goal is to train the men in self-awareness and impulse control by helping them develop the ability to reflect on their experience, especially when triggered. Building the mindfulness skill of the capacity to stop and reflect produces a shift from an impulsive reaction to a skillful response, or conscious choice. Mastering this behavioral shift represents the decisive difference between committing a crime or not.

Bridging the Gap to the Community

In collaboration with San Quentin State Prison, IPP is dedicated to bridging the gap between punishment and parole through rehabilitation, so inmates break the cycle of incarceration, stay out of prison, and become productive community members. Programs are conducted using a combination of sophisticated psychological processes and practical self-awareness techniques so inmates shift from reacting blindly to cultivating skillful responses, to anchoring their insights into real and lasting behavior change. Since 1996, IPP's programs have expanded substantially with institutional and community support, including business leaders inspired by the organization's social entrepreneurship. 

Note From Jacques Verduin, Executive Director

How You Can Help

Contact Information