Book review: Peace Inside: A Prisoner’s Guide to Meditation
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550518771467 |
| Author | Dave Wood |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews
Book reviews
Peace Inside: A Prisoner’s Guide to Meditation
Sam Settle (ed.)
Jessica Kingsley; 2017, pp. 272; £12.99; pbk
ISBN: 978-1785922350
Reviewed by: Dave Wood, Founder and Director of Metanoeo CIC
In a criminal justice world characterised by increasing prison suicide rates and
unprecedented levels of stress being experienced by practitioners, this could per-
haps be one of the most influential books you will read. Although Peace Inside has
primarily been written for prisoners, the text will be of interest to practitioners who
want to support internal change in a challenging external environment for both the
individuals they work with and themselves.
Meditation, and in particular mindfulness, has become an increasingly popular
form of stress reduction and life enhancement for many in the community. The
Phoenix Trust works in the custodial environment to bring the benefits of meditation
to prisoners. In the foreword, Phoenix Trust patron and poet Benjamin Zephaniah
reflects this, discussing how he discovered meditation as ‘a way of not just surviving,
but also of thriving’ (p. 12) when he was in prison. This first-hand narrative from
someone who has experienced meditation in the custodial environment is one of the
key features of this fascinating book.
The unique aspect of Peace Inside lies in the fact that it not only conveys the
principles, benefits and challenges of meditation in theory, but complements this
with prisoners’ experiences of putting the principles into practice through the pub-
lication of letters between inmates and the Phoenix Trust. These correspondences
are thematised and make up around 75%of the book. On a personal note, as
someone who took up meditation initially as a stressed criminal justice practitioner
and has subsequently continued since resigning to establish a social enterprise, this
is the primary added value of the book over other instructional texts on meditation.
These letters give great insight and encouragement on how to meditate when the
external circumstances are challenging.
Probation Journal
2018, Vol. 65(2) 223–228
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0264550518771467
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The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
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