The Washington State Penitentiary’s presence in Walla Walla is pretty obvious. The lights from the prison are visible from many places in town, signs warning against giving rides to strangers line the highway and KWCW gets its most consistent numbers of listeners from behind bars.

Not as many people at Whitman think much about the Walla Walla Juvenile Detention Center. Minors who have been sent to the Center are out on the sidewalks of downtown every weekend doing garbage duty, but their presence rarely registers with those walking by.

Rebecca Sickels, Adjunct Professor of Sport Studies at Whitman, has devoted much more than her attention to these teenagers. Every week for almost two years, she’s been teaching a yoga class for girls at the Juvenile Detention Center (JDC).

“It was a friend of mine that happens to run the JDC that told me I really ought to teach there,” said Sickels. “I said I would do it for a month, and if I hated it my friend had to stop talking about it. Of course I ended up loving it.”

In order to take Sickels’ class, female detainees must first earn privileges in the Detention Center. Every student who takes the class chooses to be there.

“Sometimes they don’t want to finish a class, but it’s always better than being in their rooms. I would love to think they come for me, but I’m sure they actually just hate staying in the same place all day.”

The makeup of the class is diverse, according to Sickels. There have been times when she reports having every girl present there for a different crime, and being held for a different length of time.

“The hardest thing, the thing that makes it different than Whitman, is that the kids I’m teaching are always revolving. It’s not a long-term holding facility. The kids go on to jail, or rehab, depending on what they’ve done. Or they go on probation.”

Sickels is in the middle of trying to create a program for her students who get put on probation. With a potential start date sometime next fall, this setup would allow relationships with students to last longer than their stays in the JDC.

“It seems like as soon as we form a relationship, they’re moving on,” said Sickels. “I hope to eventually have them for longer, on a more structured program.”

For the sake of detainee confidentiality, no questions could be asked of girls at the JDC who have taken yoga from Sickels. She’s described by her Whitman students as “encouraging,” “perky” and “knowledgeable” in class.
But more credit is due to the young women taking yoga than the instructor, insists Sickels.

“Lots of people have written them off, just because their lives took this turn. Every person there has just as much inside of   them as you and me. They just have to tap that instead. These kids aren’t just out doing garbage duty every week. They would love to be seen as who they really are,” said Sickels.

Eventually Sickels hopes to combine yoga with volunteering even further, giving her students the chance to teach yoga in the community as well. Instructors must be certified to work at the JDC, but Sickels is confident that if given the opportunity, Whitman yoga students would also be interested in teaching.

Sickels is not the only Whitman faculty member to bring her expertise to Walla Walla’s inmates.

English professor Roberta Davidson decided to move the Shakespeare class she’s been teaching for 20 years on campus to the Washington State Penitentiary, where she worked with maximum-security prisoners.   She co-authored a book about her experience, entitled “Macbeth for Murderers,” whose release has brought the project some media attention. An interview with Davidson about her book, as well as her time behind bars, can be found online at Seattle’s NPR Web site: kuow.org.

“I’m always looking forward,” said Sickels. “I’m hoping that as part of an advanced class, I can send some students into elementary schools or into the JDC with certification. There’s a path in front of us. It’s just waiting to see if people want to follow it or not.”