Prison of Peace was created by professional mediators Laurel Kaufer, Esq. and Douglas E. Noll, Esq. at the request of a small group of women serving life and long-term sentences at Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, CA.

Beginning their quest in 2007, this group wrote over 50 handwritten letters from prison to mediators all over California. Their letters went unanswered until August of 2009 when one of the letters, written by Susan Russo, made it to Laurel Kaufer, Esq., a well-known Southern California mediator and peacemaker and founder of the post-Katrina Mississippi Mediation Project. “As soon as I read the letter, I was hooked, but also knew that I couldn’t do it alone. Still standing at the mailbox, I called my friend and colleague, Doug Noll,” said Ms. Kaufer. "I read the letter to him. He was silent for a moment before he said, ‘I’m in. What’s our next step?’”

The story is one of personal commitment to themselves and the community in which many women were sentenced to live out their lives. “This is an environment filled with conflict and violence. There is a dire need and want for change,” said Ms. Russo, “Mediation interests all of us because we are lifers and long-termers hoping to make a difference in teaching our peers that there is a better way.”

Susan Russo passed away on September 30, 2022, while incarcerated at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, California. Through Prison of Peace, she set in motion a vehicle for change in the lives of incarcerated people around the world.