ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the development of a model of mediation that embeds itself into a community, becomes self-replicating, and ultimately, self-sustaining. It also describes the elements of the model, successes and failures to date, and how the model is being tested in schools and communities. The goals of Prison of Peace (POP) are to help inmates serving life sentences develop skills in emotional intelligence, problem solving, and moral engagement. By training the general population of inmates within a prison, the POP trainers have slowly and powerfully transformed cultures of violence into cultures of peace. The mediation curriculum reinforces the earlier skills and teaches methodologies for the use of those skills in intervention in conflicts. Mentors are inmates with completed mediation training who sit through the training cycle again with a new group of inmates. Following each POP training session, the inmates fill out self-reporting surveys to determine programmatic effectiveness.
