Word: prisoners
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When Newton emerged from prison in 1970, he found the Panthers divided into rival factions. One reason was that the FBI had begun a campaign of dirty tricks-counterfeit Panther documents, fake denunciations of various Panthers as police informants-in an effort to disrupt what the agency's Washington intelligence chief called "the most violence prone of all the extremist groups...
Newton vehemently denies any involvement in these shootings. Sitting in a visiting room on the tenth floor of the Alameda County courthouse, wearing white prison overalls, he admitted in an interview with TIME that the attacks "might have been the result of overzealous party members," but he quickly added, "There's no way my interests could have been served by activities like that." Indeed, he still sees most of his difficulties as a consequence of police harassment. During one of his last weeks out of prison, he claims, he was stopped three times by the police. Says Newton...
...vilest deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air," wrote Oscar Wilde. In the California prison system, for years one of the most violent in the U.S., something quite different has taken root: Transcendental Meditation. At Folsom Prison, a state-run storehouse for repeat offenders, more than 250 inmates over the past three years have stopped hating and hitting each other to sit quietly and think their mantras. Encouraged by Folsom's example, authorities at San Quentin ("the Q") and Deuel Vocational Institution have opened their doors to TM programs. The state parole board has asked...
Says Pat Corum, a three-time loser serving a double life sentence at San Quentin for murder and kidnaping: "The walls in my head were thicker than prison walls. With TM, those walls have come down." Other converts include members of the Mexican Mafia, Aryan Brotherhood and Black Guerrilla Family, groups well known for making mayhem in California prisons. "It don't sound right to say I enjoy being here, but it don't bother me like it did before," says Felix Padia, a Folsom inmate who has been meditating for 17 months. Says Convicted Dope Peddler Willie...
Such results may not justify the millennial euphoria of the TM faithful who now predict that meditation may eliminate prison violence, and ultimately prisons, entirely. But any results are encouraging in a field where rehabilitation has been an almost total failure. Says State Department of Corrections Chief of Research Robert Dickover: "I think I have seen enough results from prison studies to justify my opinion that positive effects are emerging from the TM program...