right. >> welcome and we are so glad you are here on the mosaic show. >> glad to be here. >> for those who may not be familiar with the quaker church or denomination, tell us a little bit about it and what worship might be like and your values and theology. >> the part of the quakers i belong to is called a friends meeting rather than the friends church although there is a friends church. we worship in silence. we sit in silence and we wait upon the spirit. people may speak out of the silence as they are moved by the spirit. in an hour you may get a few messages and then we just returned to the silence and we stay in that space. we do not have ordained clergy we all take responsibility for the ministry and we do everything by committee as often happens in churches.>>

and in a quaker community what would be some of the other activities or the ministries that might occur? >> there has been a close relationship in our tradition between our faith and our action. particularly in the world and related to social justice, the environment, and so forth. there is a lot of work and we do have committees that do that, the peace and social order committee, environmental committees, we have a worship and ministry committee and pastoral care, that kind of thing to handle all the business of what an pastor would normally handle. >> would a visitor be welcome?>> always good and like many denominations where challenge ourselves to be more welcoming and trying to take people feel more comfortable coming into an unfamiliar space at first. >> we are not used to that much silence in our lives let alone in a worship setting. >> it really is true, it is a

form of christian mysticism going back to the 1600s as a lot can happen in that silence but you have to be able to wait. >> giving space for the spirit to speak through people. >> right and i think i can say theologically, we are one of the peace churches, there were three originals, the mennonites, the brother and and the quakers so we've had a strong pacifist tradition, not going to work and not feeling like a right to take a life. that has carried over to obviously the present, but also on the issues i work on which is the criminal punishment system. >> we want to hear about that work as it is very important and very timely right now, through the american friends services committee that was established in 1917. >> we just celebrated our centennial two years ago. >> will happy anniversary.>>

thank you. >> that is the social justice branch of the church? >> it is an independent organization, and geo -- ngo basically and it is quaker based and the board is predominantly friends and the term friends and quaker is interchangeable and the official title is religious society of friends but we have been called quakers from the beginning has people were found to quake when they were in the throes of the spirit and so the nickname came along very early. i've had that experience when i need to speak and meeting my body often starts to start shaking. >> you feel it in your body first. good for us to know, quakers and friends is interchangeable as is the religious society of friends which you participate in the strawberry creek friends meeting.>> yes in berkeley. there are only about 1400 friends in this part of the

california and nevada area so it is not a lot but we are mighty we think. and we have an impact we hope. >> absolutely. laura is the program director of the healing justice program of the american friends services committee and we would like to hear the work you're doing and abolishing the death penalty and your work with solitary confinement and prisoners experiencing that. when we come back we will hear more about that. about that.

>> welcome back to mosaic i am elizabeth, the pastor at st. mark's lutheran church, today our special guest is laura monani, the program director of the healing justice program of the american friends committee and tell us of the work you are doing specifically. >> we work on a wide variety of prison issues but the ones i thought we would focus on today are the death penalty in solitary confinement. it is a really important moment now on the death penalty because of the decision the new governor, gavin newsom made, to give people a reprieve currently on death row.

there are 737 people on death row, 23 are women. his decision is a moratorium that it does not end it. it just says i cannot do this. i was really moved by his taking that stance as it is very personal. and to me it is very faith related. when you are the person who is responsible for signing a death warrant it is a different thing than any of the rest of us usually face. as of his reasons for saying this is wrong and not taking us in the direction that we need to go i thought were excellent and it puts the issue back on the pages to think about because we've had a moratorium in effect since 2006 when the courts said the method you are using is wrong. you cannot use these strange drugs that are really torturing people as they are dying. >> and ineffective in some cases. >> and ineffective but it is

amazing to think about who decides what they call a cocktail to give somebody to kill them and that we would be spending our time thinking about that as a society is not very good for us. anyway the courts have floated way down. but then newsom was able to step in and say this should not be there at all and one of the exciting things to me is that right away legislation was introduced, constitutional amendment aca12 to abolish it in california as soon as he made that decision and 23 co- authors i've been working on this issue since the 1970s when the us supreme court said it was unconstitutional, for small amount of time we did not have it in california and i was there when people are introducing legislation to both reinstate it and abolish it and there were two or three people may have signed on. so the idea that 23 co-authors are signing onto this and it takes too there is a vote to

legislature and it would have to go to ballot because the people who originally put these laws on the books. it is a long way from here to there but the idea that we're talking about it again and taking it seriously and asking ourselves is this really how we want to spend our money and how we want to treat people? the message you are sending is that killing people is okay and i don't think that is the message we want to send it you are talking about death qualified offenses we would like to say no it is not okay and we will not participate in it and we don't want you to participate it.>> i know when family members who have had another family member killed or murdered, some of them say that an execution of those who perpetrated the crime does not bring them any relief or closure, it does not bring their loved one back. but in your conversations with

people who have differing opinions, what are you hearing? >> you know we have worked a lot with family members who have been on both sides of the issue. a lot of times families do think it will bring closure and after it happens they are stuc with the same feelings. some of that has come out in the article since the governors decision as it really does not bring closure, if you read the book dead men walking, same thing, she spent a lot of time with family members and perpetrators as she came away realizing that it was not meeting anybody's needs to take another life. it is an important conversation to be having. our system is not about healing and it is not really about taking care of the victims the victims are just used in the legal process to get a conviction and their needs are not being met, certainly not

their emotional needs, sometimes a few of their financial needs and this is not the way we should be taking care of people.>> what is your vision of taking care of the victims? >> other countries really invest in this and they spend as much money and time the ground or the victims need in a situation like this and not just focusing on getting the bad guy and punish the bad guy. there is much more parity between what you do with the offender and what you do with the victim. of the words are problematic because they are all people and they are coming from different perspectives. >> for those who are on a death sentence serving time, are all in san quentin? >> the men are in san quentin, the women are in women's facilities, i have visited for over 20 years. just to keep hope alive to see if it is possible to have a life while you're waiting for death. people typically on death row in california are waiting decades for the legal process

to run its course. just to be in relationship and make sure that people are being treated like human beings. >> how do you keep hope alive? on this season of easter, a season of hope and new life, where you find that in prison? >> the person i visit as an artist and he paints wonderful pictures, particularly animals. he watches pbs shows to learn his craft, he does not have anybody to teach them so he is totally self-taught. he has gotten so much better in the time i have known him, a plate painted in owl for my granddaughter and it is life- affirming for him and the receiving end person. >> is living as if he has a future. >> which i am very moved by because i don't know if i would be able to do that. >> how challenging it could be.

>> but we could be putting resources into making sure that happened, giving people access to programs or education if we wanted to treat people like human beings.>> there are more like him i would think, like you said, there are 737 total.>> yeah. and we do not want them focusing on death either we want them focusing on life because my belief is a christian is people can change and there is redemption, and that is where we need to concentrate our resources. if we all want to go forward together we need to be thinking about what brings life and not what brings death. >> that is right. that is an appropriate message on this easter palm sunday and will be back here more messages of hope from prison in a few more minutes. fe more minutes.

>> welcome back to mosaic in this easter season today with us is laura monani, we have been talking about your work with prisoners on death row and abolishment of the death penalty, but another area of interest for you is the issue of the psychological, physical and emotional punishment of solitary confinement. talk to us about that particular work in focus. >> people do not realize that beginning in the 1980s we started building institutions for permanent solitary confinement. places which were very isolating and where people were going to go and stay forever. there has always been the whole, what we might think of as timeout when we're raising kids perhaps, there's always been a certain amount of

isolation but is always been temporary when somebody misbehaves. but these units did not have to do with that. they had to do with gang management especially alternate and separating people. and so people have been spending decades in solitary confinement. >> define what that means. >> it is a jail cell the size of a small bathroom you do not get out of at all except to shower. there is an exercise cage you would be exercising in alone about the same size, just walking up and down, and you do not have human contact except with regards to can be very hostile. it is extreme isolation and it is not good for the human soul does not make people better. in fact it does cause mental illness which is all been documented and it is easy to understand, i think i would go crazy in a month and that kind of situation. back in 2011 we got packets of information from prisoners at pelican bay in california who

had been in the situation for decades. they had made a decision to go on hunger strike, and nonviolent tactics to draw attention to their plight and let people know this was happening. they had demands they all agreed on and they worked across all of these different gang groups that supposedly could not get together. every decision they made they did make together and they would not go forward unless they all agreed. and so in july and so in july 2011 they went on their first hunger strike and altogether there were three of them, two 2011 and one of them in 2013. there were by that time 14,000 people in some form of long- term isolation. >> here in the state of california? >> here in california alone and when they started working as a way to mediation team to talk to the department of corrections for us on our

behalf and i was privileged really to serve on that team to try to be a communication vehicle between the prisoners on strike and the department. i think it was life-changing for the department people and for us in the prisoners themselves. since that time i think the number is 82% of prisoners in solitary confinement were released to general population and something like 60% in administrative segregation was, another form of it. it is been a huge step forward for the prisoners and what has been life-changing for us in the prison abolition movement is to hear these ideas and leadership from the people inside who are really suffering the most. they were not even asking to abolish solitary confinement although my organization would support that but they just said you've got to do it in a completely different way. you got to give people an opportunity to be with other human beings or give people programming and he cannot expect people to change or get

better in the circumstances they are in. >> so you are seeing progress. >> we are seeing progress and there is a very favorable court decision monitor now in the settlement phase. and they also issued a call to end hostilities and they said if they're going to put us in here because they think we cannot get along with each other we have to stop that behavior and start really working together and they put out a call to end hostilities to everyone in prison and say let's try to start working together. it is life-changing but it is a work in progress. >> it is a work in progress. you know given your focus on this really intense work, what is your vision for the world? where do you find hope in what is your vision for doing what you are doing?>> the vision is freedom, the vision is doing things that are life-affirming and actually make us better and more whole. the prison system is built on punishment and violence.

restorative justice, which we do a lot of in my organization, is based on wholeness and healing, which we all need, whatever our origins or our histories. and we do not spend enough time figure out how to get that and practicing because it takes practice as it is not something we automatically know how to do. >> it is certainly easier to punish, lockup and throw away the key as you hear, then the hard work of forgiveness and restoration and making amends.>> it is not about no accountability and it does involve making amends but doing it in a way where people actually take responsibility. >> we will be back in just a moment and talk more about the hope of easter season, hope even found in prison through the good work that laura monani is doing. we will be right back. right back.

welcome back to mosaic on this easter season, laura monani has been our special guest and we were going to speak about forgiveness and how important and central but is for the work you do and your vision for your work.>> one of the things that is personified by what the

governor did on the death penalty is he used his authority to give people reprieves and to say let's try something different. and that has been in common law from the beginning, since colonial times, heads of state have always had that power and it is extremely important that somebody have the power to make a choice for mercy instead of meanness and punishment. i think that is very important. but also i think people do not know forgiveness because they may not feel like they are forgivable. if we do not practice that people will not feel it and we will not get there. we have to ask ourselves what kind of world we want to build? if we just build it on violence and meanness and hatred we will not get there.>> as christians we believe in the god of forgiveness and a god of hope and on easter the god of resurrection and a new life, starting over, new beginnings. your work certainly personifies

that as a work of new beginnings for so many. but also this easter season is a time for you, as our viewer, to begin again whatever that might mean for you and to celebrate easter, the resurrection of jesus christ, we want you to go to our worship service on easter sunday or throughout the easter season. laura was mentioning that you will experience a very contemplative gathering at a friends service.>> write the people on easter sunday might give messages about easter and the theme might go there and it is called an unprogrammed meeting. >> very good. worship at your local congregations. we want people to try out their neighborhood church, especially on easter sunday and throughout the season of easter, visitors are always welcomed and expected. but a practical note, check the website, particularly on easter sunday there might be a special

breakfast or extra services or music, so you want to make sure that you arrive at the time you want to be there for everything. at st. mark's there are two services, marks lutheran at nine and 11, we have a lot of festive music at st. mark's. a huge pipe organ with special music at pipe organ with special music at 10:30 am. lots to hear and listen to along with the wonderful hymns of hallelujah. throughout the season of easter and the season of your life, we thank you for showing us where new life is. and where it can be in the prison system in the state of california. thank you for the good work and the work the american friends committee is doing. >> thank you to mosaic.>> and thank you especially are cohost, rev. swisher, blessings to you on this easter season, hope you will go out and worship. we will see you next time.

have a wonderful day. wonderful day.

[captioning funded by cbs sports division] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its captioning content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] jim: good morning from the masters. what a day this is going to be. with the >> good morning from the masters and what a day this is going to be, an early start from the leader francesco molinari now just leaving the practice facility. >> they will be playing today with tiger woods who is two back. and what history will be written today? we had plenty yesterday. a record for scoring. molinari at the 12 with the