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| Quiet Approach To Calming Jail |
| By Baltimore Sun |
| Published: 04/29/2002 |
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Sharron Cole is awaiting trial on drug-dealing charges. But with the help of Baltimore jail officials, she's also awaiting inner peace through yoga and Zen meditation, both of which she and 20 other inmates have been learning behind bars. 'When they first came to me in jail and said, 'Do you want to learn to meditate?' I just laughed,' said Cole, 30, who is being held at the Baltimore City Detention Center on drug charges for the fourth time. 'I said, 'I've sold drugs all my life. What do I want to meditate for?'' The meditation program for female inmates, which state officials say is the first of its kind in the country, is the latest unorthodox approach by LaMont W. Flanagan, commissioner of pretrial detention and services, to reducing jail violence. Those efforts include a squad of black-uniformed 'special security' officers who roam the jail - occasionally armed with chemical and electrified weapons - confronting inmates and tearing up cells in search of homemade weapons. The aggressive search-and-seizure tactics have turned up dozens of weapons at the detention center in the 400 block of E. Madison St. Such homemade weapons can range from shanks made from toothbrush handles to electrically charged guns made from the motors of portable compact disc players. In recent years, the outspoken Flanagan, whose motto is 'Let's entertain them before they entertain us,' has staged preacher rallies, stand-up comedy nights and semi-pro boxing spectacles in the jail. Flanagan said both approaches are needed to reduce jail violence, which he says has decreased by more than 50 percent since the program began in October 1999. 'This is an attempt to continue our serious work in reducing violence and to provide these inmates with mechanisms to deal with life in both its good and bad circumstances,' he said. 'The meditation program gives the inmates the opportunity to think about themselves and gives them the ability to cope with depression, stress, and disappointment in ways other than drug addiction.' |
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