Shouts of “ooh-rah” fill the air every morning at Moriah Shock Incarceration Facility as inmates file out of the building, signaling to guards that they’re ready for the day. Moriah is a New York-based prison with a philosophy that aims to reduce recidivism through discipline, education, and therapy. Their shock facility is one of only two in the state.
Moriah houses almost 200 inmates and is located near the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Rather than bars, the inmates are surrounded by nature.
The term “shock” dates back to Moriah’s former iteration as a boot camp prison in the 1990s which emphasized hyper-strict schedules and military-like disciplining as a way to change the behavior of inmates. However, these prisons became controversial and many closed down. These days, shock facilities are quite different – they still uphold discipline, but now they prioritize education and therapy.
“I really stress out, I’m a worrywart. And that’s the main thing I’m taking from this program, dealing with my stress,” Yunik Wynn tells North County Public Radio. “I’m more relaxed here. I’m very relaxed.”
Here’s how it works: select non-violent felons are offered the choice to serve their sentence in a shock facility in exchange for a reduced sentence. The drawback? Hard work and lots of it. Inmates wake up at 5:30 each morning and go through rigorous exercise routines. Then, some are assigned and others opt for community-assisting manual labor—recently inmates were assigned to build a nearby playground. Their afternoons are spent in therapy, and life-skills and substance abuse programs. When an inmate finishes their time at Moriah, the facility hosts a graduation ceremony and gives the inmates a diploma listing their achievements.
“When you teach people about self-development, self-knowledge, and self-awareness, you build those cognitive skills that are imperative to go back to employment and be part of their community,” Katherine Vockins, of Rehabilitation Through the Arts, told Nationswell.
The results? Recidivism rates at Moriah are about 1/2 the state-wide rates and it saves the state about $20,000 a year to pay for each inmate.
“It’s still a prison — we never forget that — but the goal here is different than other prisons. At other prisons upstate, they carry batons. Our officers carry whistles” Kim Schaefer, an employee at Moriah, told Nationswell. “People say we’re the best-kept secret. Problem is, we don’t want to be a secret.”
