Inmates are people too: Psychologist Keisha- Anne Alleyne advocates for compassion and rehabilitatio

Keisha-Anne advocates for a more compassionate prison system rooted in empathy, healing and true rehabilitation as well as a greater understanding of the inmates’ circumstances to eradicate taboos and believes that by updating the system’s existing structures and encouraging collaborative efforts amongst prison staff, inmates and other parties involved, our local prison system could be more effective.

Having worked closely with a number of prisoners, she’s “tired of seeing good people have their potential go down the drain.” Keisha-Anne, who also runs a private practice that offers services dedicated to psychological and holistic self-improvement, believes that life has brought her to a place where she can help persons who may perhaps otherwise be unable to receive the support that they need.

Through this journey, she has managed

to maintain a close friendship with Nadia Pooran, who was released 11 months ago, after spending 13 years behind bars. Keisha- Anne praises her “survivor spirit” and the fact that, despite the obstacles that she has experienced — jail time included — she has managed to make use of the resources placed at her disposal, having attained a number of passes during her time in prison.

Keisha-Anne told WMN that she and Nadia first crossed paths about nine years ago when she had taken a job as an OJT (On-the-Job training) trainee, interviewing inmates at the Women’s Prison at Golden Grove to gather information for a psychology student’s postgraduate research. Keisha- Anne, herself, at the time, had recently completed her BSc in Psychology at Howard University in Washington, DC

“I realised that there was a lot going on in there,” Keisha-Anne explained, referring to her deep and direct understanding of the close link between abuse or exposure to violence and criminal activity.

“Many of the women [at the prison] had been charged with killing their abusers… [male prisoners] opened up to me as well.” She recalled a story that one of the inmates had told her in which he witnessed his parents gunned down.

Maintaining that her intentions were genuine, Keisha-Anne revealed that she was fired from her job after it was discovered that she and Nadia had continued their correspondence outside of the context of the job. That was when it dawned on her that, in order to truly bring about change as she saw it possible, she perhaps would be better off developing her skills independently.

“I needed a lot more training and know-how,” Keisha-Anne admitted, justifying her decision to go back to school. She pursued her MSc in Clinical Psychology at the UWI, which she completed in 2010. Today, she still works with former inmates towards the improvement of prison system conditions and the inmates’ readjustment into society after release.

From the stories shared by the inmates, Keisha-Anne told WMN that, whether prisoner or policeman, our actions are rooted in a series of common human needs.

“I realised that people [who commit criminal acts] have regular feelings, but due to their being subjected to a lot of trauma, they have lost the ability to maintain that ‘social mask’,” she revealed. She assured that we all have the capacity to lose our cool when placed under circumstances that she refers to as a “pressure cooker effect”, to emphasise some of the difficulties that many inmates have undergone that have led them to lives of crime in the first place.

According to Keisha-Anne, removing the “criminal lens” through which inmates are often viewed can allow their humanity to emerge.

The psychologist spoke of the “ride or die” culture of gang life and membership, referring to the loyal nature of the relationship between gang members as similar to that of a “family unit.”

“People who make the choice to join a gang [are searching for] a sense of identity and oneness,” she explained. She continued, “joining a gang is often the survival mode version of that search for love and acceptance.”

Keisha-Anne realised that many inmates end up “worse off” than when they first began serving their sentences due to the lack of compassion and corrupt practices inherent in the prison system. “Prison is supposed to have a rehabilitative effect, providing you with [skills] to reduce the likelihood of committing a repeat offence,” she explained.

She added that, due to the stressful environment, many of the inmates aren’t allowed to fully benefit from the opportunities afforded them behind bars. “They have to be in survival mode trying to fight against the corrupt system; no one is looking at the human aspect, [ensuring that the system is] geared towards helping people.” To address these deficiencies, she collaborates with Nadia to better understand how the needs of the inmate can be met to create the best possible environment for rehabilitation and self-improvement, making certain that the “human element is not lost.”

With funding from the US Embassy, Keisha- Anne was chosen by the US Department of State to participate in the 2015 International Visitors Leadership Programme, spending three weeks visiting Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana and Washington and interacting with leaders in prison reform and education. “It opened my eyes to how much help is needed locally,” she informed.

The psychologist admires Norway for its exemplary prison system management. “They’re actually closing down prisons over there because of how successful their prison system is,” she told WMN. “A lot of [that success] stems from their looking at the inmates as humans—they don’t use force and they’re not oppressive; they look at the punishment as having your freedom restricted but they’re still treated like human beings, which goes a very long way in helping people to heal.”

She has already made contact with a friend who works with the Norwegian government to organise a visit, hopefully carded for July 2017, so that she can learn more about their best practices and develop ways to adapt them to a local context.

Among the services offered at Keisha-Anne’s Arima-based practice are Psychoeducational assessments — used in the detection of dyslexia, intellectual giftedness or delays, and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), among others — Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) techniques, hypnosis and Reiki, a holistic Japanese technique for healing and stress reduction, rooted in the belief that human touch can bring about this healing.

“No one is a hard-and-fast criminal,” Keisha- Anne says of our local inmates. “Normal people end up in that life.” She continued, stressing the importance of keeping the inmates’ humanness in mind, “It’s easy to be hardened against someone else’s plight when you either can’t connect with their struggle or you are too preoccupied with your own.”