Jeffery Winchester

Having spent a collective 30+ years in prison, I’ve grown accustomed to the hatred, violence, racism, anger, negativity, and ruthlessness that prison has to offer.

I am no stranger to a world filled with anger and violence, having afflicted permanent brain damage onto one man, taking the lives of two other men, and committing a brutal penitentiary stabbing myself. 

Over the past 20 years, I have involved myself in numerous programs with one goal in mind: to make myself a better person so that I will never harm another human being as long as I live. I heard about a new program called Nonviolent Communication. I decided to look into it thinking that maybe I could find a golden nugget.

The first thing I learned was an entirely new concept for me. It was a thing called “empathy”. This was difficult for me to grasp because for the most of my life I had no concern for other people nor how they felt. As the months passed, bonds were formed and strengthened between all of the members in our Nonviolent Communication group. We began to accept and trust each other after only a few short months. Today we view each other as family.

I found myself comparing what I had been learning in my Nonviolent Communication group to that of the numerous other programs that I had taken over the years. One thing is for certain—never before have I seen the changes and the progress that I’ve seen in each member of my Nonviolent Communication group.

My Nonviolent Communication group has a beautiful mixture of diversity across ethnicity, religion, personality, cultural background, and sexual preference. We have all lived by the codes, creeds, and unwritten rules of prison for many, many years. What I’ve seen and experienced in Nonviolent Communication I’ve never seen nor experienced anywhere else—and for that I am eternally grateful.

In my Nonviolent Communication group, we have all transcended ourselves above the elements of our own environment. We’ve crossed ethnic and racial boundaries, as well as having risen above the prison’s political convictions. We are able to look at each other and say, “I like you, I trust you, I respect you” and “I am proud to be your friend.” Thank you, Nonviolent Communication.