A rite of passage is a specific type of ritual meant to support a person’s transition from one identity within the community, to another. These transitions can elevate or degrade. When a person is convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, they undergo a powerful rite of passage. It is a rite of degradation. People are downgraded from the status of “citizen” to the status of “convict,” “prisoner” or “outcast.”

But words like convict and prisoner are more than just legal labels. They become new social identities. They stick to a person. Too often, the broader public defines people by the crimes they’ve committed, and formerly incarcerated men and women can carry feelings of shame and stigma for many years after they are released from prison. Often these feelings last the rest of their lives.

Drawing from more than five decades of literature that point to the power of ritual and rites of passage as tools for helping to welcome people back into society after incarceration, Ritual4Return (R4R) begins with the organizing concept that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution, and ends with a premise — articulated by criminologist Jeremy Travis — that to confront the many crises associated with mass incarceration, we must “close the gap between ‘us’ and them’.”

R4R is a semester-long course through which returning citizens engage with and explore the many aspects of their own experiences getting into, through, and out of prison. Reading from a wide variety of source materials and then trying to understand them through dialogue, writing, movement exercises, and theatrical devising techniques, participants will explore — individually and collectively — themes like Home, Sin, Judgement, Punishment, Exile, Bondage, Trauma, Grief, Freedom, Repair, Forgiveness, Justice, and Homecoming.

The process culminates with a one-time-only public ritual marking and celebrating the end of incarceration and the beginning of an individual’s new identity within the community. This rite of passage is the centerpiece of a one-day gathering that aims to extend the conversation to family members, loved ones, and other community stakeholders who care about the impacts of incarceration. Our goal, broadly, is to change the narrative around those of us who have been incarcerated and who are working to lead positive lives after our release. But as a community who has had our story told for us and about us, we must fight, first, to better understand our own stories. Then we must learn how to tell them. Ritual4Return opens a public space to tell our stories, and to position them as catalysts for deeper dialogue between people — “us” and “them” — who often don’t see themselves in the other.

If you or someone you know is ready to tell their own story and announce the next chapter of their life, reach out to find out how to join the next cohort!