Bedi introduced drug treatment programs and created an atmosphere that encouraged prayer and meditation. Literacy programs were instituted wherein educated prisoners put their skills to good use teaching their fellow prisoners. Legal advocacy by inmates who were lawyers was encouraged. Bedi had trees planted in a central area of the prison to put a tangible expression to the environment she planned to create. She began a course in Vipassana, an ancient technique of self-purification, which has experienced a public revival in India after having been all but lost for centuries.
Participants spend a rigorous ten days of meditation and prayer, learning to observe themselves.
Talking, reading, drinking, smoking, and sexual activity are forbidden during this period of confinement. No one may leave once the course has begun and the periods to eat, rest, and meditate are strictly scheduled. As the course progresses, the participant is brought face to face with himself. This reality check has had a positive impact on many of the prisoners. Many prisoners feel the course rehabilitated them as it forced them to look directly and without excuses into their dark sides.