THE LANDING STRIP SUPPORT GROUP
by Paul Busby, AVP-New York

I have seen a convicted murderer come into a room and receive hugs from everyone in the room. I have seen the barriers of color, class, education, and "previous condition of servitude" erased. I have seen two people agree to disagree, and continue to love each other. Of course, this will not seem surprising to most people who are open to Transforming Power. It happens frequently in the AVP community.

Nowhere is this more true than in Landing Strip. Landing Strip is a support group for people who took AVP workshops in prison and those who facilitate in prisons. Members of the AVP family had dreamed for years of having some sort of place in which people coming out of prison could continue their participation in AVP while they made the incredibly difficult transition to freedom.

Back in the early '90s, AVP outside facilitators Paddy Lane and Florence McNeill became very concerned about what was happening to AVPers who were getting out of prison. They learned from pre-release counselors that the first 90 days were crucial to success. At the same time, several inmates who were about to be released from Sing Sing wanted to continue AVP in the streets. In April 1994 in New York City, ex-iprisoners Jim Forgione, Aaron McBride, Robert Smith and Pete Bell got together with Paddy and Florence and this dream finally gave birth to Landing Strip.

In the words of Safety Valve Sal, "Landing Strip to me was a lighthouse full of air traffic controllers who helped me get my wheels back on the ground after circling the prison airfields for 25 years."

We still have dreams, of halfway houses, job referrals, educational opportunities, housing, and other things that would help AVP graduates stay out of the revolving door of the prison industrial complex.

What we have at this time is a support group which meets twice a month. Why do people come to Landing Strip? Members say, "I know I'm not going to get clothes; I'm not going to get housing; I'm not going to get a job. I know I'm going to get cookies and a snack and a token to get home if I need it." Landing strip is a network; it's not just going to meetings. The Landing Strip is there every day. Landing Strip is the AVP family. Landing Strip is the one place where ex-inmates are welcome and can feel safe. They can talk about prison and the transition experience that family and friends really don't understand.

Reality Robert says, "Landing Strip is a place where my past convictions are not the emphasis as my transitional efforts."

Members share their experience, strength, and hope (to borrow a phrase from Recovery groups), encourage one another, cry with one another, and most of all, perhaps, help one another to keep their priorities straight. Landing Strip tends to be a drop-in situation. Ex-inmates show up when they need someone to talk to. It is a place where people can help each other and talk to people who have been through it.

Landing strip is a place where you can come to identify with situations about coming out of prison to help you adjust to the transition back to society." is the way Positive Pete expresses what landing Strip is about.

What do Landing Strip members say about successful transition? "Patience, "says one. "Preparation, preparation, preparation," says another. "First remorse, deep introspection of who you really are, ongoing self esteem," says a third. Another finds that "Family, a lot of love and support and just nor forgetting where you came from and what you've been through," are the key elements.

Life is hard in jail but ex-offenders frequently run into so many roadblocks that they find life on the outside is even harder. Rejected for jobs, rejected for housing, rejected by families. Sometimes ex-prisoners become so discouraged that they are ready to "throw a brick." (That is, throw a brick through a store window to get arrested and get thrown back in jail for a parole violation.) Landing Strip is a place to come to talk about these problems. I know of situations in which a Landing Strip member lovingly helped another to make the right decision, the decision that kept the other from going back to prison.

Ex-prisoners want to give back. They especially want to work with youth to keep them from making the mistakes they made themselves. Last summer, two landing strip members along with a community facilitator, led a remarkable workshop that helped to resolve a violent incident between two youth groups. Fourteen young people were facing charges that could result in one to three years in jail. All of those involved in the conflict attended the same workshop. After the positive results in the workshop, the charges were dropped.

How do I start a Landing Strip in my area?

1. You need a small core group if outside facilitators and ex-prisoners who are committed to the process. It helps to have one or two ex-prisoners who have been through the transition experience.

2. Network with prison coordinators to let them know about the program. Get the word out to your inside facilitators and workshop graduates. Most importantly, get home addresses and phone numbers of inmates before the get out. Then call them, don't expect them to call you.

2. Don't expect ex-inmates to attend consistently. They are often overwhelmed by the problems they face. They will come when they need it.3. Don't expect the same sense of community as in a workshop. A network of caring will develop but it is more informal.

AVP has had a tremendous impact on my life, On the inside, I lived a very sheltered, anti-social life. I just wanted to keep to myself and do my bid; I was reluctant to get involved in many of the programs. Anyway, my friend Kevin bugged me for the longest time to take my Basic and for the sake of getting him off my back, I took the Basic.

AVP became a way of life for me. I got a sense of "realness' from the workshops. To be around all those "hardened criminals" and watch them open up about the issues in their life and break down and cry really touched me. It got to the point where AVP became a "source of strength" for me. I looked forward to the workshops and dreaded their conclusions. I am big on community and family values, and have received a sense of both from my workshops. I view my fellow AVPers as "family" I had the opportunity to choose. AVP has made me a better person, and I'm proud to be part of something so caring... something so real.

As for Landing Strip; it's the only place I feel comfortable being myself. It has given me the opportunity to connect with family that knows exactly what I'm going through. Landing Strip has been a provider of workshops, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, and above all else "unconditional love."

Other Voices from Landing Strip...

What needs does Landing Strip meet?

"I guess its a place I can go to realign myself."

"Emotionally it's like you could have the family who have been there all the time for you but there's some issues you need to talk to other people that's been in prison... it helps a lot just to have someone to talk to... someone who has been there before."

What keeps you involved?

"AVP is like my family... the encouragement I get from the people and the principles, that's what keeps me involved."

How do inmates cross the precarious and shaky bridge between prison and the street. How do ex-prisoners avoid becoming a recidivism statistics? The Way Home offers a safe bridge to the street.

After serving as an AVP facilitator and working with a prison bible study group, Barbara Carter decided to build a bridge. In 1998, she put together a proposal for a comprehensive transition program for inmates in the Sussex Correctional Institution in Delaware. The program begins in prison by helping inmates put together an Action Plan for Release. After release, The Way Home helps with housing search, job search, transportation to work, and a support group for ex-prisoners. The Way Home also offers mentoring by pairing newly released prisoners with older ex-prisoners that have successfully made the transition to the street.

The Way Home opened its bridge in October 1998 and there are now 26 participants making a successful transition to the street. There will be more information about The Way Home in the next issue of the Transformer.

Sometimes freedom is a trap

Like,

When you've been in prison for years and years,

When you have been dehumanized at every turn,

When you've survived by becoming a robot,

When you've been released with no money,

When you have few or no job skills,

When there is no place as home,

When old friends are gone or must be avoided,

Then freedom is a fantasy,

It's just another trap!

The Delaware Valley Council has been aware from it's first visit to Graterford Prison that an even greater challenge faced by inmates that finding alternatives to violence, is what happens to them on release. The obstacles faced by many parolees upon release are so overwhelming that a productive life without crime seems impossible to achieve for oneself.

A concerned group of individuals in St. Louis, recognized this problem and set up a program to do something about it 25 years ago. It is called "COPE" which stands for "Congregation + Offender + Partnership + Enterprise."

The challenge is to make the right connections. The process is relatively simple. Project COPE interviews and screens applicants soon to be released from prison and selects those most likely to succeed with a little help from some friends. Project COPE then recruits and trains c congregation-based teams of volunteers with one ex-offender of their choice and shepherds their partnership for one year.

Sometimes Project COPE is just someone to talk to. Sometimes it means help with job search, food, clothes, transportation of family counseling. COPE is always radical hospitality, a fresh start, people power, teamwork, tough love, an act of faith.

The Gynedd Friends Meeting, having become aware of the St. Louis program and through the intimate association with AP, are in the process of establishing a Project COPE for our friends in Graterford Prison. Please wish us well!

When is the last time you went to a poetry reading? There are many poets in America but a very small audience for poetry. Most wouldn't get caught dead at a poetry reading. This is not new. 2,000 years ago every educated Roman was expected to be a poet but no one wanted to go to the poetry readings. Pliny the Younger wrote a humorous essay about all the excuses Roman citizens used to avoid offending their friends. Some said that they were ill with phlegm, others only walked in when the reading was nearly over, and some went to the baths instead and sent their slaves to the poetry reading.

Well, Slam Poetry has changed all that. It has made poetry reading a spectator sport. Slam Poetry started about 20 years a go when a group of poets assembled in a bar to read their poems. Three people were selected from the audience to rate the poems from 1 to 10 like the judges in an ice skating competition. The contest was open to all, and poets competed for the highest score.

Slam Poetry has come to Sing Sing. The AVP Poetry Workshop has been meeting every week since June and usually attracts at least a dozen poets. Although they don't rate the poems, each person is expected to participate. All the participants are given an assignment to write a new poem every week and recite the poem for the group. The topics are about Transforming Power and other AVP themes. The workshops have been organized by insider, Tyrone Waters and outsiders, Luther Sanders and Meribeth Seaman.

We were visions

in the womb

Warm

Safe inside

Our Mothers and God

The hope of tomorrow

Afraid of yesterday

Afraid of today

Afraid of all except

You

Suddenly

We were loved

Warm again

Safe inside

Our Mothers and God

Warming us

Securing us

Loving us

Teaching us

Trusting us

Protecting us

Unafraid of us Being

The hope of tomorrow

The purpose of your mystery

The pages of your being

Singing

We are Visions

Tyrone Waters

I Upon still water,

waves envelop a date palm,

because a stone falls...

II the tree becomes shaped to,

to the wit of the master,

with intricate hands.

III Ignited by spark,

the fire burns blazingly,

from a gentle breeze...

IV Carried by the wind,

feathers float to lofty heights,

just to softly land...

Elements are these,

water, earth fire and wind,

life's necessities.