By Frank Carlile I’m not the smartest person in this prison, but I would like to be. I’ve met some very intelligent people here, and try to learn from each of them. When I first transferred here, I signed up for every class I could. By the time I left the transfer unit, I was
By K.I. Love
Change [rehabilitation] starts with the individual. The person has to want to change, grow, and learn. This has to be a personal decision. This is a process that takes place naturally when our results don’t meet our expectations. In other words, when our circumstances are in contradiction with our desires, goals, or self-image, we entertain the idea of change. Image courtesy mashable.com
This contradiction causes us anxiety and/or pain in some shape or form. When our lives don’t align with our ideals, then we move to correct or re-align ourselves. We rationalize the situation or minimize the problem so that we can eliminate the anxiety or discord in our lives.
What I have presented is an emotional process that we go through when we encounter a problem in life. Men are moved by their emotions. Therefore, if we are to attempt to influence people’s behaviors, attitudes, or conduct, then we have to stir their emotions — to produce anxiety and mental discord within that individual. You have to magnify and display the error in their thinking. If you can help a person see their blind spots, then you have the power to influence their thinking and therefore their actions.
This is the essence of education — to broaden perspectives so as to see thoughts, ideas, and actions in their entirety, as opposed to just a fractional percentage. How can we act tactically when our strategies are based only on a fraction of the data? If we do that, then our actions and performance will always come up short and/or produce failure. A limited view always limits the viewer and therefore limits performance. “When you know better, you do better.”
By Gary Walden
As of this writing, I have 212 days clean and sober. I wake each day and thank my Higher Power for another chance to help a fellow inmate who may be struggling with a drug or alcohol addiction. This may not sound like a lot of ‘clean time’ to some who may be reading this, but to me each day is a new journey into uncharted territory.
Someone once observed that to gauge how well you are doing in controlling your own life, pay attention to how many ‘managers’ you have: Wardens or lawyers, probation officers and police, health professionals and counselors. If you have an abundance of unsolicited ‘managers’ in your life, perhaps it’s time to do some critical analysis of where your life is heading. Image courtesy stagevu.com
I recently performed a ‘searching and fearless’ inventory and realized what the last three years of drug and alcohol abuse cost me financially, personally, and spiritually.
Included in this inventory were my dream house, 401k and pension funds, a professional engineering position, a thirty-three year marriage, a twenty plus year career in the Air Force, and being invited to not come back to my church of twenty-eight years.
Along with those expenses, I made sure to personally purchase a lot of expensive ‘bling’ for the local crack dealer, and made sure several liquor stores ended up making a profit. This certainly was not a fair trade.
A common opinion in American society is that prisoners don’t deserve help. They are the ones that put themselves in prison to begin with.
Most citizens are not aware that when prisoners are released into society it is our responsibility to care. The outside population is affected by offenders that are released from prison without essential life skills. Community members and tax-payers are impacted by prisoners that are unable to survive in the outside world because the only way these individuals know how to earn a living is to commit crimes. Image courtesy prisonsociety.org
The Pennsylvania Prison Society (PPS) has been educating former offenders to become productive citizens and advocating for safe communities since 1787. The organization continues to add new programs that make it possible for former offenders to successfully reintegrate back into society.
Most inmates are accustomed to a family environment filled with stress and trauma. Enduring prison life is no different.
PPS reduces the recidivism tipping point by offering new workshops for former inmates that promote coping skills and innovative approaches to living a fulfilling life in the real world.
By Jon Leckie When Jonathan Roach graduated from high school, he was thirsty for higher education, but as an inmate in Alameda County’s Juvenile Hall, the opportunity didn’t exist. Yet despite his lack of resources, Roach became the first person in Alameda County to begin his college career while still a prisoner of the juvenile
With fiscal uncertainty rampant and budget cuts looming, state lawmakers are finally seeing the light when it comes to correction’s budgets. This light comes in the numbers of 7% and $50 billion. According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, states spend 7% of their discretionary budgets, $50 billion a year, on corrections. This
There’s little doubt that the criminal justice system in the United States is in need of reform. Much greater than population or crime rate growth are the number of people behind bars and the costs associated with keeping them locked up. Even small and inexpensive programs can have profound results in terms of lowering the
By Dianne Frazee-Walker Tom Clements was the Colorado Corrections Chief that was gunned down and killed by suspect Evan Ebel on March 14, 2013. Ebel was the parolee who prompted the Colorado parole director to create a new policy that would reduce the response time for ankle bracelet tampering alerts after he allegedly removed his
Image courtesy syracuse.comDianne Frazee-Walker
Ricardo Garcia, 28, reads to his nephew, Noah, from a Colorado prison. Garcia is incarcerated for a burglary conviction and parole violation. He has hopes that by exposing his nephew to literature, Noah will have a chance to live a different life than his uncle.
“Before, when I was out on the streets I was not a good example for him,” Garcia said. “I have a desire to be there for him. I want to be a good role model. I really hope they see that education is important and that reading is important.”
Garcia and other inmates are changing the grim statistics that children of incarcerated parents are six times more likely to end up in prison.
The reading program, Read to the Children is an innovative idea directed by Diane Waldon, state librarian.
Read to the Children entails inmates who have a good behavior record reading children’s stories to their kids. The parent’s voices are recorded on a DVD and sent to their children or loved ones. The postage is paid by the participating inmates.
In 2004, I was falsely accused of a crime. I did not foresee how this unfortunate situation was going to morph into changing many lives in a positive way. In 2006, I founded Full Circle Restorative Justice in Chaffee County Colorado, which is a 501 c 3 non-profit organization committed to facilitating victims and offenders to reconcile crimes and minimize involvement with the legal system. The goal of the process is to lower the recidivism rate. Image courtesy cartertoons.com
I was introduced to the Non-Violent Communication founded by Marshall B. Rosenberg Ph. D. in 2007. Patty La Taille, who is the current Executive Director of Full Circle Restorative Justice, and I initiated a bi-monthly Non-Violent Communication study group. We used Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, A Language of Life 2nd edition and the companion workbook as our guide. We appropriately named our group meeting Compassionate Listening Study Group. I recognized the value of this innovative approach to mediation and communication skills and had a vision of incorporating it into the justice system.
Patty La Taille has taken Non-Violent Communication to a higher level in Chaffee County. She has attended two of Marshall Rosenberg’s (NVC) intensive workshops, and brought her newly acquired skills back to Salida, Colorado. La Taille facilitates NVC study groups at the Salida Middle School and Chaffee County Detention center. She, along with board member Karen, Latvala is educating students about new ways to resolve conflict with their peers.
We have profiled every prison within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
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Elizabeth Franklin-Best P.C.
1501 Belle Isle Avenue, Suite 110
Mount Pleasant, SC 29464
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