Mianta McKnight, one of Prison of Peace’s original fifteen students, and one of the first group of trainers certified, was released on parole in December 2013, after serving eighteen years on a sentence of fifteen years to life. Mianta attributes her release to the personal transformation she found through her work with Prison of Peace.  Shortly after her release, she began teaching the Prison of Peace program on a volunteer basis at a resource center to a group of men and women transitioning from prison back to communities in San Francisco.  Just as she was when learning these skills in prison, she found these students “eager to learn something new and soak up all that she lays before them, particularly because she knows that life and is able to make it relatable to the life experiences they have had in prison and are now facing in the community."More often than not now, Prison of Peace peacemakers and mediators are being found suitable for parole.

It has been our hope that the investment our trainers have made in Prison of Peace (and us in them) will continue to be shared with others well into the future, not because it is required, but because it is necessary.  To that end, Prison of Peace will be launching a new project in 2015.  Prison of Peace intends, through “Each One, Peace Won”, to offer trainers certified during incarceration, with opportunities for part-time employment upon their release, as trainers of these workshops for others who wish to create prisons of peace elsewhere in the world, and in communities of need outside prison fences.  Stay tuned…