Yoga has been proven to a successful procedure to reduce stress among prisoners in South Africa.
Raeez Safar sits in a grassy courtyard, his eyes closed as he lifts his hands to his face. The sleeves of his white top fall past his wrists, revealing a small, neat gang tattoo of the number "26".
Safar is one of more than 250 South African prisoners who regularly do yoga. He says it helps him cope with incarceration at Pollsmoor, one of the country's most notorious prisons. "Yoga makes me feel positive about life. It has helped me to deal with the stress of prison life," he says.
Cape Town volunteer organisation SevaUnite introduced yoga at Pollsmoor six years ago. Today, prisoners in nine correctional facilities nationwide are part of the programme.
"We now also teach classes, but the main thrust is teaching yoga through a correspondence course," says Brian Bergman, SevaUnite's founder and director. "Inmates complete six modules a year. Every time they write a module our teachers provide written feedback and, at the end, they have to teach three inmates the course they've just done."
Bergman says feedback has been positive. "We had one guy write us and say that he feels freer now than he's ever felt in his life and this is coming from a guy who had it all – the house, the car, the expensive watch. He's serving a life sentence."
Bergman says he was inspired by a similar programme in India, which along with countries including New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, has used yoga to introduce prisoners to mindfulness.
The psychological therapy, which dates back to the 60s and 70s, has seen a recent resurgence in popularity. "Mindfulness is knowing what's happening while it's happening, no matter what it is, without judgment," says clinical psychologist Tracy McIntyre, quoting a definition coined by South African mindfulness practitioner Rob Nairn.
Based in Port Elizabeth, McIntyre is one of a growing number of South African clinical psychologists who have adopted the technique. Mindfulness works to develop patients awareness and understanding of thought processes, she says: "We can realise that we are not our thoughts, feelings and emotions."
A 2013 analysis published in Clinical Psychology Review of more than 200 studies showed mindfulness was an effective treatment for anxiety, stress and depression. The UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence now recommends the therapy as a way to help people with a history of depression.
Officials at South Africa's Department of Correctional Services see yoga as part of an integrated approach to mental health, says a spokesman, Manelisi Wolela. "Most offenders taking yoga classes have attested the programme provides them with the opportunity to learn to accept themselves the way they are, to deal with stressful situations in a calm manner and to avoid negative thinking. Many of them are now less aggressive and have seen improvements in their health and wellbeing," he explains.
Clinical psychologist Yeshe Schepers helped introduce the programme at Worcester prison in Western Cape province. "We know that a lot of people who end up committing crimes often say that they don't know what led them to it, so there is very much a lack of awareness about their actions," she explains.
"Mindfulness can be useful for people who struggle with understanding or being aware of what is going on within them. It's a nice tool to create a connection between what I think, feel and do and the impact of behaviour – especially in correctional settings where there is a lot of hostility."
She says patients who do yoga report feeling calmer, which is important given high levels of noise and hostility in prison. She says the feeling is shared by corrections officers who have asked for their own regular yoga classes to manage stress.
Schepers says it has also given prisoners a sense of independence behind bars. "I see a sense of agency in them in being able to do something for themselves – they are not dependent on a guard or a visitor bringing something in for them. It's almost like a sense of confidence I've noticed."
Since 2004, the Department of Correctional Services has more than doubled the number of psychologists it employs, but still only about 100 serve the country's almost 160,000 inmates. Being able to equip prisoners with tools to manage their own emotions and stress may go a long way.
Schepers says: "The one thing that the offenders will say is ‘I have learned to think before I act'. I think that's a lot because that, in essence, is the mindfulness. A moment of awareness to give a choice to think through and to choose their response and that is very, very powerful."
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