Volunteering within the walls of a prison can have a profound effect on those inside. It can also profoundly impact the volunteers themselves.
Just ask Amanda Weitman. And she’ll tell you about what she learned from the applied research project she did for her Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy PhilD (Professional Doctorate in Philanthropic Leadership).
But first, let’s start at the beginning of her journey into the world of the incarcerated.
The recently retired San Francisco Bay Area-based Wells Fargo Bank managing director and wealth advisor began volunteering at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center in 2019. It all began with a walkathon.
Weitman had created a philanthropy book club at Wells Fargo Private Bank. And to get an idea of how fundraising works, the members participated in a walkathon at San Quentin to raise money for Project Avery, a nonprofit that provides support for children with incarcerated parents.
And that initial experience totally changed her view of people in prison.
Misperceptions of prisoners
A couple of days after I agreed to go to the walkathon, I asked myself, “What did I agree to?” All I knew was what the media tells us about those incarcerated,” she says. “When I went to the first walkathon, I was met by super friendly people. They shook hands with me, and we talked about things like the fact that we were parents. Everything I had been told about people in prison was wrong. I didn’t have to believe what the media told me about prisoners, because I knew differently.
“They’re intelligent and talented and funny. They’re just like us, but something went on in their life that made them do a bad thing and end up in prison.”
Through the walkathon she got to know the editor of the San Quentin News. And at the time she was working on a master’s degree at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. The degree requires an internship, and Weitman was inspired to create an internship at the San Quentin News. Her internship involved developing an event on the outside to raise money for the newspaper. Because of the Covid epidemic, however, that event never took place. As her next step at San Quentin, she began a weekly financial literacy class for the news staff members. Weitman continues to teach this weekly class using the 14-week curriculum she created.
Two San Quentin clubs report zero recidivism
One thing she noticed from spending time at San Quentin was that those who were members of the San Quentin News and the 1,000 Mile Club, the rehabilitative center’s organized running club, have zero recidivism after leaving. That’s right, zero recidivism – an almost-unheard-of statistic in the world of incarceration.
“They’re very different groups, but I noticed that they both had a very dedicated group of volunteers coming in to help them,” Weitman says. And that fact, as well as the zero-recidivism rate, inspired her to research the role of community volunteers in California prisons.
And when it was time to choose a topic for her Indiana University Lilly Family School PhilD applied research project (the school’s version of a thesis), she decided to focus on those volunteers.
Why Weitman chose community volunteers for her research
“I wanted to understand if there is a connection between the incarcerated working with volunteers and recidivism,” she says. “I could see when I went in the impact on both of us. I wanted to find out if there really was a connection.”
Part of her research and her research paper focus on the broader issue of mass incarceration.
“To understand the impact that volunteers make, I had to understand the bigger picture of mass incarceration,” she says.
Weitman researched the social issues contributing to mass incarceration, beginning with childhood trauma and social isolation, and going on to include low levels of education, poverty and homelessness, and living in neighborhoods that are over-policed. She also explored the criminalization off addiction and mental illness.
In addition, she delves into the existing research on recidivism, rehabilitation, social isolation and human connection to demonstrate that her own research into the benefits of community volunteers working in prisons is relevant.
About half of her research focuses on the background to understanding mass incarceration and the issues that those in prison face, but the most interesting and unique component of her study is the value of community volunteers.
The impact of volunteers working with the incarcerated is the most significant gap in the research that has been done on recidivism. And Weitman hopes to help fill that gap.
Changing her perception of community volunteers
Weitman’s perception of community volunteers evolved while volunteering at San Quentin and doing her research.
“I realize how important it is. And there isn’t just one volunteer that’s going to make a difference. There’s a mass going in” she says. “It’s important for the guys at San Quetin to meet a lot of different people in society and learn from them.
“I learned how dedicated the volunteers at San Quentin are, and how they love going in. It’s often the highlight of their week. The volunteers are getting as much, if not more, from going in than the incarcerated are.”
In her research paper, Weitman cites the dangers of social isolation and the benefits of the positive social connections provided by community volunteers.
What the research found
Her own research “investigates how positive social connections formed through these volunteers can help lessen social isolation in prisons and examines the impact these connections may have on reducing recidivism rates.”
To conduct the research, she sent surveys to 20 California nonprofit organizations and asked them to forward the survey to clients who met the criteria.
Participants had to have:
- Served time in a men’s prison in the California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation
- Been out of prison for at least three years.
- Have not been reconvicted for a new crime.
She received 20 completed surveys and 11 of the respondents agreed to be interviewed.
In the survey she asked a variety of questions including:
- How long they had served.
- How many prisons they had been incarcerated in.
- What rehabilitation programs they had participated in.
- Which programs helped with their personal development.
- If the program included community volunteers, how impactful the interactions with them were. (On a scale of 1 to 5, they ranked this 4.94.)
- The benefits or drawbacks of interacting with community volunteers.
- How important it was to have access to community volunteers while in prison. (On a scale of 1 to 5, they ranked this 5.)
Heartfelt responses
By conducting interviews, Weitman was able to gain more insight and learn the personal stories of the respondents and their relationships with community volunteers. And in her research study paper, she included some of their responses.
Several, in particular, highlight the benefits of volunteers:
The volunteer aspect of it was really impactful because for so long I’ve been isolating myself from the larger society. Even before I was in prison, I just stayed around my so-called neighborhood and really didn’t know what the world looked like outside of my neighborhood.
And so interacting with volunteers helped a lot. It opened my eyes, it opened my world, really. You know, it helped me build confidence in myself to speak to other people who look different than me and sound different than me. It knocked away preconceived biases that I may have had. It helped me to be open and talk to people and just to trust people again.
And from another interview:
I was locked up for 20 years on this last sentence, and before that, I was in for two years as a juvenile. I had so many gaps in my life. I didn’t know how to balance a checkbook or how to pay a car note. I didn’t know how to do all of these things that I didn’t have to before I was inside because I was inside for so long. I learned all of that stuff from volunteers, from them sharing their life experiences and their lived experiences in the same way that we value on the outside. They call us prison experts. But what about the volunteers who come in? These are life experts. They can teach you how to live because they’ve been successful at it, and they’re coming in to help you by sharing that knowledge and awareness.
And a third response:
When you are in prison, the guards are trained in a certain way. They are trained to dehumanize you. And then a volunteer comes in, and they’re treating you almost as an equal, it’s like, whoa! For me, at least, I started seeing the humanity in myself. You’re dehumanized so much inside there, and then someone comes in and treats you as if you are one of them. It’s like, we start seeing it in ourselves, right? Like what is possible and that I am human. I can be a community member. I am this, you know? And for me, that was hugely important.
And a fourth, and final, story:
If volunteers came in and they were happy, it rubbed off on the staff, the guards became happy. Volunteers came in, and they’re changing the culture and the way people see themselves and the way they interact. People are letting their guards down. They’re happier, they’re more motivated. And so that brings more peace, that brings more openness, and then that rubs off on officers. That rubs off on the administration. And so before you know it, we start having conversations. More and more conversations happen between blue and green, volunteer and administration, so that it becomes a free-flowing place of another potential.
Recommendations
At the end of her study paper, Weitman makes a series of recommendations. Most of them go beyond volunteerism to improving the general conditions in prisons and the awareness of what happens inside.
They include:
Identifying correctional officers who support rehabilitation. These officers can be given additional training and become leaders who create a more supportive environment.
Enhancing volunteer training. Rather than just be conducted by prison staff, the training could include volunteers and individuals who are incarcerated and are participating in the type of programs the volunteers are being trained for. It could also include creating a volunteer handbook.
Hosting a volunteer appreciation day. This would give volunteers and those who are incarcerated a chance to get to know each other socially, outside of formal programs.
Creating customized learning plans. These should be developed when a person enters prison, so they have an idea of what programs might be beneficial to participate in.
Strengthening communication skills. Many people in prison have mentioned to Weitman that they are uncomfortable initiating conversations with visitors to the prison. She suggests hosting informal gatherings with food and drink and conversations between those who are incarcerated and volunteers.
Creating a reentry computer game. One of her most unique recommendations is creating a computer game to let people experience what reentry will entail, including all the obstacles those in reentry might face. These obstacles include the difficulty of finding a job and/or housing and access to education. Playing this game could encourage people to seek out more programs or get advice from volunteers. The game could also be made available to the general public, so they get an idea of the challenges that those leaving prison face in reentry.
Encouraging family participation. Nonprofits could offer a weekly virtual overview of what their family member is learning in prison, so they can gain similar knowledge and understanding. That way they will be able to better connect with their family member when they return from prison.
The value of volunteers
The words of a person who was formerly incarcerated and included in the summary chapter said it best:
I spent 30 years behind prison walls, three decades of isolation, routine dehumanization, and a system that tried every day to convince me I was disposable. In that darkness, volunteers were a lifeline. They were often the only connection to a world that still saw us as human. Alongside our families, they reminded us that we still mattered, that we still had something worth saving. To those who chose to walk into these spaces – spaces designed to erase and discard – thank you. Your presence is an act of resistance. Your compassion is a form of justice. And your willingness to see us not for what we have done, but for who we are and who we can become, is a light in places built to extinguish hope.
Weitman’s research raises an important question: What happens when people inside prison have regular opportunities to connect with people from the broader community who see them as human beings rather than simply as their crimes or their incarceration?
Her research suggests that those connections may matter deeply, both to the people inside and to the volunteers who walk through the prison gates.
You can read her applied research project paper here.
