Fresno, CA (PRWEB) October 31, 2011

Douglas E. Noll Professional Mediator and co-founder of Prison of Peace, a non profit organization dedicated to teaching peacemaking and mediating skills for incarcerated women, discovered insights from working with inmates that helped shape his new groundbreaking book, Elusive Peace: How Modern Diplomatic Strategies Could Better Resolve World Conflicts (Prometheus Spring 2011).


“We started the Prison of Peace nonprofit project a few months after I had acquired a publishing contract for Elusive Peace. A female inmate in Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California reached out to us through a handwritten letter for help in reducing the conflict and violence within the prison. While working with these women, I saw many similarities to war and violence. My thought was that if we could be successful teaching these women with dark pasts, many of them serving time for murder and manslaughter, to be peacemakers, it would be a strong testament to the idea that peacemaking in other equally difficult and challenging parts of the world would be possible. Through working with these women I was energized with hope that world conflicts could be mediated, and peace can be achieved. The book, Elusive Peace offers strategies for accomplishing peace in areas of conflict around the world, as well as mediating peace at home,” Noll explained.

Prison of Peace is a pro bono project created by professional mediators Laurel Kaufer, Esq. and Douglas E. Noll, Esq. at the request of life and long-term inmates at Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, Ca, and has received attention from Senator Carol Liu, Chair of the California Senate Select Committee on Women and Children in the Criminal Justice System who said, “Prison of Peace in transforming inmates into trainers themselves, provides a low-cost sustainable rehabilitative program that is necessary in all California prisons. I look forward to seeing this program continue to grow and impact the lives of incarcerated women throughout California.”
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