One San Francisco area nonprofit helps incarcerated girls find the connection between their mind and body through an activity viewed by some as exclusive, privileged and lacking in diversity — yoga.    

Former nurse practitioner and founder of The Art of Yoga Project, Mary Lynn Fitton, saw a pattern of young female patients seeking help for conditions like substance abuse, anxiety and depression.  Issues she knew through her own practice, could be remedied by yoga.   

“I really felt that there was this gap,” Fitton said. “We had talk therapy, we had pharmaceuticals, and I felt like it needed to be so much more. It needs to be in the body.”

With the juvenile justice system at its focal point, The Art of Yoga Project brings movement and art to the underserved population of girls Fitton once helped in her healthcare career.  The group encourages youth to look inward, teaching self awareness, understanding and respect through an activity that may otherwise be out of reach due to race and socioeconomics.

“I wanted all the young women that I saw to have that same sense of coming home to their body to learn to have a positive self dialectic,” Fitton said, “to improve their relationship with themselves.”

The 15-year-old organization has grown into a team of 50 art, writing and yoga teachers, visiting 26 sites one to three times a week in the San Francisco Bay Area, including five juvenile facilities in three counties. 

Fitton said the project prides itself on sourcing teachers from within, creating pathways to jobs for formerly underserved youth through yoga teacher training scholarships.  It also provides workshops and programs to educate staff on how to work with at-risk youth. 

“We realized the importance of having teachers that represent the population that we serve,”  Fitton said. “Because of mass incarceration and because of social injustice, we have primarily Black and brown girls. So we strive to help our teachers match that population and body, body identity, body size, gender identity.”

Despite a body of research proving the universal mental and physical health benefits of the Southeast Asian tradition, yoga’s role in American society has become a phenomenon of racial exclusivity, largely reserved for the white, rich and privileged. 

“Seeing [The Art of Yoga Project] come to the shelter was one of the first times I saw a yoga teacher of color, so that was very affirming for me,” said Sadie D., now a teacher with the nonprofit. “I’m a Black woman and at the time, I felt very insecure about my interest in yoga because the spaces that are meant for it are predominantly white and [cost] a lot of money.  There’s a lot of class disparity there.”

Sadie, who asked that her last name not be used, was homeless in the Bay Area since about the second grade, before she was aware of what being homeless really meant, she said. The now 24-year-old was introduced to The Art of Yoga Project in 2013 when she attended a yoga class at one of its partner studios in Redwood City for her birthday. 

She later received a scholarship from the project to complete her yoga teacher training, and has been an instructor for the past five years. She said the opportunity came full circle for her when she taught her first class at the shelter she once lived in. 

“I was happy for the opportunity and really humbled, grateful that I could be in a space that I had been in and be a reflection for the youth. I really identify with them,” Sadie said.  “It didn’t feel like it was out of the question for them to want to pursue something like yoga.”

Though never incarcerated herself, Sadie said she knew the struggle to survive from her own childhood experiences, and while teaching in juvenile facilities, was overcome with emotion. 

“It felt a lot more vulnerable being in those spaces with them, in a good way though,” she said. “That was one of the first times I’ve cried from teaching yoga…They make an impact on you.”

At one of the San Mateo facilities partnering with the group in 2012, many youth reported prior abuse, neglect, dysfunctional family dynamics and addiction, said Danielle Arlanda Harris, a professor at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University in Australia and former research director for The Art of Yoga Project.

“They’d done some of these things that were horrible, but they hadn’t done them because they wanted to,” Harris said, “…they had done them because they had been so horrifically abused and were so vulnerable and were from such horrific backgrounds that I just couldn’t fathom.”

These occurrences are known as Adverse Childhood Experiences are apparent in an estimated 70-90% of juvenile offenders and if left untreated, can leave traumatic effects on a developing child. 

“Sometimes you don’t even want to be connected to your body,”  Sadie said.  

The Art of Yoga Project considers the perspective of traumatized youth, presenting each class as a set of choices to restore the youth’s sense of power over their body, even during vulnerable yoga postures or when their eyes are closed,  Harris said. 

“Downward dog and puppy pose and even child’s pose, it can be awfully triggering to a body that has experienced sexual trauma,” she said. 

Implementing a set of practices with an understanding for adverse childhood experiences in mind is what qualifies behavioral management and therapy programs as being trauma informed, according to a 2016 report by the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice.  

“When I got [to the facilities], I really realized it was so much more about social injustice and trauma,” Fitton said. “We quickly had to learn to be trauma informed before that word was even known, before people were using that term, before people even talked about trauma.”

Even with trauma informed practices, the positive impact of yoga on incarcerated girls is hard to quantify,  Harris said. 

“I was constantly being asked to provide evidence that the program was working right,”  Harris said. “The question was always… ‘How many downward dogs does it take to reduce recidivism?’…I wish I could tell you.”

Harris said she did see change in the girls’ demeanor.  On days that The Art of Yoga Project held a class, Harris noted fewer fights in the facilities, girls began to open up more in group settings and privately in written reflections.

“I had taken yoga for years…But these girls, they were in their bodies,”  Harris said. “They would talk about it and they’d write about it in the journals, about being a woman and thinking about it in ways I had totally taken for granted.”

To track the progression of education or a learned skill, Harris said researchers administer tests before and after to measure the difference.  Since yoga is an internalized practice, Harris adjusted her methods to a series of check-ins with youth throughout eight weeks of yoga.  

Instead of a drastic increase in positive internal dialogue or self image responses, Harris said participants were honest, authentic and reflective in their check-ins, as yoga encouraged their own mindfulness.

“We weren’t able to reach statistical significance,”  Harris said. “But that was the moment, I think, that I learned that qualitative research is where we need to be. Because answering all of these questions with numbers doesn’t tell the full story.”

Sadie said the impact of yoga has made on her life can be traced to one moment.

“I got overwhelmed with emotion that I couldn’t really explain, but it didn’t feel chaotic… It felt like I could move in it,”  Sadie said.  “It’s one of those things that feel so personal that it’s hard to even put into words why and how it matters.”

The instructor guided the class into a variation of a wide-legged forward fold — a posture that compresses the body at the hips and changes perspective by redirecting the gaze.  Sadie said in this posture, she felt in control of her life. 

Newly 18 and living in a shelter at the time, Sadie said she felt strength.

“That moment, I remember it,”  Sadie said. “After that I remember feeling my body more.  Feeling powerful in my own skin.  I could walk taller. I felt that connection, it’s like something I hadn’t realized I was missing.” 

On and off her mat, Sadie shares a common mission with The Art of Yoga Project. 

“Right now, my thought is that there is more of a need to provide yoga in the spaces who don’t have it,” she said. “People of color and bigger bodies.”

Source art courtesy of The Art of Yoga Project

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Erin Espinosa from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency conducted a webinar in April where she presented her research on pathways of the juvenile justice system.

The webinar, “Pathways Girls Take to and Through the Juvenile Justice System,” highlighted how mental health, trauma and gender all intertwine and affect the paths that juveniles take that may lead to their involvement in the juvenile justice system.

Espinosa discussed the differences in pathways girls take that increase their likelihood of involvement in the justice system versus boys, and said girls are detained for longer periods of time in comparison to boys.

Factors taken into account when analyzing a youth’s length of stay stemmed from ethnicity to mental health markers, she said in the webinar. Girls who have experienced trauma or received mental health treatment are likely to be incarcerated for longer periods of time, up to five days longer than boys, Espinosa said.

“Boys…none of that was a factor [trauma or mental health] — it was crime-related activity,” she said. “We keep boys locked up longer, essentially for criminogenic issues, and girls tend to stay longer for treatment issues.”

Aside from higher levels of traumatic experiences, girls of color additionally face higher rates of sexual abuse that contribute to their funneling within the system, Espinosa said in the webinar.

The National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice reported that four out of five girls in the juvenile system reported experiencing some form of sexual abuse in their adolescence. Additionally, 35% of Latina girls under 18 experienced sexual abuse during their childhoods, according to a 2013 study by San Diego State University scholars. 

The U.S. Department of Justice revealed in a report that minority youth make up half of the youth population in placement facilities. Black girls make up 34% of girls in placement facilities across the United States, while Hispanic girls account for 22%.

Victimization endured by girls can translate to an increased likelihood of their involvement within the justice system. Factors of victimization can include such as adultification and hypersexualization.

Girls of color, notably Black girls, are unprotected members of society who are often hypersexualized,” LaTasha DeLoach said.

DeLoach, a senior center coordinator in Iowa City, Iowa, said visibility of a body plays a role in the high levels of sexual abuse of Black women.

Upon further discussion of sexual assault and kidnapping rates, LaTasha noted how Native American kidnapping numbers “are terrible,” as many cases remain unreported, and thus remain unmentioned.

Black and Latina girls, in comparison to their White counterparts, are perceived to be less innocent and more adultlike, as highlighted in a report by The Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality. Further in the report, paradigms of Black femininity –– like Mammy and Sapphire –– are mentioned which emulate the idea of Blackness correlating with hypersexuality and aggression.

As mentioned in the report, the Mammy and Sapphire stereotypes originated during the period of slavery in the United States and portray Black women as “hypersexual” and “aggressive.”

The Sapphire paradigm reflects an angry and stubborn Black woman whereas the Mammy paradigm is that of a nurturing and loving mother-figure, as stated in the report.

Black girls are viewed as being adultlike in all stages of their childhood in comparison to White girls, as revealed in a study conducted by the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Iliana Pujols is a 22-year-old Latina who has been involved in the juvenile justice system in West Haven, Connecticut, since she was in fifth grade.

Pujols was charged with her first offense when she was 11, and she kept committing a variety of crimes, she said.

“I ended up going into my 18th birthday with about nine assaults,” she said. “I had like larceny, conspiracy, all kinds of things.”

Pujolos was suspended during her sophomore year of high school and soon after attended an alternative school, which she graduated from and said it was a great experience.  

Pujols said from a young age she was expected to be mature and play the role of an adult. She was raised to sometimes “play the role of mom,” and on occasion act as the head of the household. 

Appearance is also a factor of adultification — individuals are perceived as older despite being of a younger age. Pujols said she was often viewed as an aggressor due to her build and mature demeanor.

“The immediate assumption was that I was the aggressor because I was necessarily a little bit bigger than the other girl,” she said. “They thought I was over 18, but I’ve always presented myself as a very mature person, and an older person. So nobody knew that I was like 16 years old at the time.”

Though a Latina –– from Puerto Rican, Venezuelan and Dominican descent –– Pujols said she was often perceived as a younger white woman, which she said sometimes “played in her favor” in juvenile court.

Pujols mentioned she was often put in a lot of “privileged predicaments” during her encounters with the justice system, citing living in West Haven and passing as a white girl as contributing factors to her privilege.

Though Pujols was able to divert some consequences for her actions, her friends were not necessarily as lucky as she was. Recalling an instance where she and her friends got in trouble, Pujols mentioned that she might “get off with a ticket,” whereas her friend “might end up locked up for the night.”

Pujols said it’s important to approach incarcerated girls on a relational level. She recalled when she first began working at the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance and spoke to an incarcerated girl who positively spoke about her experience with a counselor.

“One session in specific stood out to me when I had this conversation with this young lady, and she was like, I like my program because, like, I can talk to my counselor about sex and losing my virginity and having my period and what to use and stuff like that”  Pujols said.

Young girls are likely to go through changes while they are detained, ranging from hormonal changes to transitioning into a young woman.

“One of the things that we’ve heard come up a lot is the need for not only role models and credible messengers,” Pujols said, “but more specifically when it comes to females needing that emotional connection, no matter where you go.”

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