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Mindfulness Interventions Essay

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Investigating the role of mindfulness interventions in the prison system. Mindfulness Interventions within the prison system is a way to decrease stress levels and improve overall mental health. This is a practice that encourages individuals to be more observant of life around them and be more in tune with their thoughts and feelings. Throughout my paper, I will be explaining how mindfulness can help to rehabilitate prisoners and real-life examples and experiences that some prisoners have been through. There are a ton of different benefits that go along with teaching mindfulness to prisoners, and many believe that it could have the potential to completely change the prison system, as well as criminals. This rehabilitation can encourage convicts …show more content…

One of the programs that I researched was an eight-week program that instructed you through exercises as well as debriefing sessions. Every week, the individuals were directed to practice six days a week for at least 45 minutes a day. Some of days, the prisoners were given pen-and-paper exercise assignments to write down their thoughts and feelings. This was a completely voluntary program which I think is super important to emphasize. If you do not want to be a part of practicing something like this, you are not forced to. With this program, it offers something to individuals that they can practice on their own multiple times a day. With most therapy sessions, you can talk things out at that moment, but with the mindfulness exercises, the prisoners could help themselves without an instructor. After learning these practices, they can be further used on their own while in bed or in a safe space. At all times of the day, the prisoners are able to use what they learned to help improve their mental health. Individuals in the jail can also go to others and meditate together and learn and grow from one another. This helps to push your strengths and challenge what you can do in a setting like that. (Bouw …show more content…

According to the website Prison Policy, 43% of people in state prisons were diagnosed with mental disorders, and 66% of people disclosed not being offered mental health care while in the prison system. (Prison Policy). Whether that is due to money, or time, something about these numbers needs to decrease, which needs to happen fast. Prison systems are meant to rehabilitate criminals, but without help, this is near impossible to do. Mindfulness lessons will allow prisoners to complete more mental health care on their own time. Mindfulness is super important and beneficial in helping with mental disorders and has been proven by many individuals who have done so. Providing these resources is super important to individuals who are struggling in the system. In many prisons, as stated above, not enough resources are offered to the convicts, such as therapy. If prisons want a cheaper and easier way, then mindfulness practice is the exact way to

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