If you are deeply connected with yourself, with your energy, staying awake to yourself in the moment, other prisoners tend to leave you alone.

I'm not fearful by nature, but I am vigilant. When you walk into a prison, it's important that a sixth sense kicks in.

You will surely smile with me when I say, 'Thank God one can still recognise self-pity as such and not give it any greater dignity than just that.

Sensitivity is equated with weakness. Feelings are for women. It's OK to express happiness or anger, but it's not OK to feel fear or sadness. This gets exaggerated in prison.

Yoga class is intimate even just from the standpoint of taking off your socks. Exposing your bare feet can be a big deal. You may be an African American next to a Caucasian or a Latino. But once practice begins and we drop in, separation dissolves.

The code that most prisoners live by is an extension of the masculine roles they were taught growing up, how they were conditioned about what it means to be a man: you've got to be strong, you've got to be tough, you've got to be in charge.

Since the late 1970's, the main focus of prisons has been punishment, not rehabilitation. It's hard to believe, but you would be hard-pressed to find a meaningful violence-prevention class in a federal or state penitentiary. And 'we the people' are footing the bill to keep these folks imprisoned. It costs on average $46,000 a year to keep an adult incarcerated in California and about the same for New York State.