For the past ten years, Heart Mountain Prison Project (HMPP), a qualified 501(c)(3),  has provided non-denominational meditation and yoga classes at six prisons and juvenile facilities throughout New Mexico.
We invite you to watch the clip below to learn more about our programs.

New Mexico has one of the fastest growing prison populations in the nation. Our mission is to help break the cycle of addiction, violence and incarceration in New Mexico. We do this by offering incarcerated youth and adults contemplative tools to promote calmness, mental clarity and self-control.  Through counsel process we help empower inmates to govern their own lives within the confines of prison.  We also provide training in ethical action to help inmates respond to problems in healthy and productive ways, create more harmony in their lives, and stay out of prison.

We need creative alternatives to warehousing our inmates.  HMPP programs are designed to reduce the "revolving-door" of recidivism (73% in New Mexico and 67% nationwide), by giving inmates the tools to address their problems. Our juvenile program provides early intervention with positive, confidence-building skills for the general population and Native American youths-at-risk. Meditation assists in anger and stress management, which has been validated by numerous studies, including our own. 

In addition to the classes we provide, HMPP also publishes an inmate’s meditation manual, "Doing Your Time with Peace of Mind: A Meditation Manual for Prisoners".  This is published in English and Spanish and distributed free of charge to prisoners nationwide. Over 6,500 inmates have received our manuals to date, including many in solitary confinement and those awaiting execution on death row.  These booklets give inmates the basics of meditation so that they can begin to explore it for themselves.  We also have a new inmate-meditation book in the works, as well as an inmate certification program for qualified inmates as teachers. 

Prison inmates are often neglected individuals, who are further traumatized by our prison system through inadequate rehabilitative programming and mental health care.  Adolescents and adults who experienced physical or emotional abuse as children often repeat these behaviors, leading to involvement with the criminal justice system: 68% of incarcerated adults report childhood victimization. Most of these survivors of childhood abuse have fallen through the cracks of the very systems that are meant to help them.  

The U.S. continues to experience a surge in its prison population, quadrupling since 1980, partially as a result of mandated sentences for nonviolent crimes like theft and drug possession that came about during the "war on drugs." Violent crime and property crime have actually declined since the early 1990s. Half of all persons incarcerated are for non-violent offences - 20% for drug offences. The population of inmates in the U.S. exceeds 2 million. 

Prisoners are the forgotten members of our society. If our community is to become whole, we must care for the whole of our community. Our goal is to interrupt the cycle of addiction, violence, and incarceration in New Mexico.