A Commitment to Service

I found it impossible to prepare for this presentation without reflecting on my 29 year relationship with the criminal justice process. Particularly the series of exponential changes required to span the distance from a solitary cell to this podium. This is not a journey that can be calculated in miles or years; perhaps better in light years or life times.

I will do my best not to bore you with personal testimonials or war stories. But in order to put my remarks in a useful context, I need to share a few realities. Since 1966 I've struggled with three major demons: my own interpersonal dysfunction, my conflicting views and emotions as an inlaw/outlaw, and my role as a practitioner in the correctional field. It has been a long, lonely path involving 16 car loads of internal dissonance, alienation, and distress. Not to mention the seething rage that too often threatens to take command of my mind and heart. My greatest challenge has been to transpose an ocean of negative subjective experiences into a source of positive, objective insight and action. In short, to create a mind set which enables bonding rather than isolation, encourages inclusion rather than exclusion.

Frankly a day never passes that I don't battle my demons, along with the burdens and distress that come with participation in the punishment industry. In the process I get sick and tired...down to the very marrow of my bones! It was a breakthrough for me when I came to realize that I am not alone in the weariness and disgust that sometimes overtakes me. In fact I believe that each of you fights this same battle in your own unique way. So our purpose here today is to look at some of the major problems we all face and then review the issue of commitment as a means to better cope with our daily challenges as service providers in a very harsh, painful social arena.

People come to training activities for a variety of reasons. To learn a little, play a little, meet and greet old friends. But today we gather with a different agenda, to search for a fresh source of power---power needed to re-commit ourselves to our often harsh function as practitioners in the arduous world of human captivity and punishment. Of the many challenges we face, none is more critical than understanding the perspective of our clients. While there are those who would have you believe they understand "the criminal mind" and ways to modify a laundry list of "thinking errors", it is my experience that they don't have a clue as to the a logical journey into the realm of madness and back again! If it were really a nice rational academic process, don't you think it would be common knowledge after 6,000 years of recorded human deviance and social dysfunction?

If you want to understand your clients, you must learn to view existence through the frame of reference of a social alien: powerless, fragmented and disconnected. Toward this end, I would like to read you the following poem, A Door With No Handle, composed in a cold dungeon of the Louisiana State Penitentiary on Christmas Eve of 1966.

A DOOR WITH NO HANDLE

For the losers of our world
Life is a door with no handle.
For the convict, the cripple, the unwed mother,
For the rejected Jew, the junkie, the old tired whore,
For the alco, the gypsy, the geriatric waiting for the lights to go out,
Life is a door with no handle.

For slaves of countless systems breeding madness in the name of order,
For the transvestite bewildered by the duality of perception,
For a sea of believers who give all but find only echoes,
Life is a door with no handle.

For those of broken spirit exiled to an island of abuse,
For culturally deprived children unwanted and unloved,
For those with no place to go and no way to get there,
Life is a door with no handle.

For the incest victim fragmented by unspeakable violations of trust,
For every woman battered into bloody unconsciousness,
For each human deprived of the ability to grow and to contribute,
Life is a door with no handle.

For the poor, the deranged and the deformed,
For the faceless recipients of man's inhumanity against man,
For all lonely souls who will this very night extinguish their own flames,
Life is a door with no handle.

Prisoner #64498, Solitary Cell #3
Louisiana State Penitentiary
Christmas Eve - 1966

Please consider the impact of this nihilistic attitude on the author's ability to relate to himself, to you, and to the world. Unfortunately, no one remembered to tell him that he was rehabilitated! So as a government-certified outcast, he started doing things after release consistent with his negative social and self-image, like using and selling drugs and emulating the actions he had witnessed in prison. This led to three subsequent convictions and the dubious label of "habitual criminal": just one more re-tread like you deal with day in and day out.

You see, I was only 23 when I wrote this poem. And over the many years since, I've been granted the trust, resources and support required to seek a better path. The same behaviors today would surely result in the brand of "career criminal," making me a prime candidate for three strikes. In a place and time where a person can get 25 to life for theft of a slice of pizza as Jerry Dewayne Williams did in LA last week, it's improbable that I'd be available for this presentation!

Now, at 52, I can vividly recall when I first glimpsed the handle I was so desperate for. After all vestiges of traditional living were stripped away and the last shreds of ego lay scattered on the floor of a filthy cage in north Louisiana, the reason for my existence became crystal clear. I exist to render service...pure and simple. With this insight came a fundamental commitment. And over the almost three decades which have passed, I have never doubted for a moment the wisdom of this decision or the worth of the path I choose to follow.

Along the way I've concluded that the job of correctional practitioners is to help offenders define and construct their own handles---and to then encourage them to apply these solutions in rewarding, pro-social ways! For a few minutes let's analyze some of the social, systemic and client-based obstacles we must clear to meet this goal. Then I will shift from a negative analysis to a more positive outlook.

Socially, we must contend with traditional knee-jerk political responses to crime that strive to placate the punitive whims of "public opinion." For 200 years our system of justice has been driven by political pandering to the lowest common denominator of our social order. Today we insist on basing public safety policy on blind emotionalism, political expediency, and the junky's tendency to take the easy way out. It is painfully ironic that we hypocritically demand accountability from children, the homeless, the disenfranchised, the mentally ill, indeed from everyone except government officials, politicians, and big business. Is there a message in the fact that the crime of "official oppression" by police is defined in the penal code as a minor misdemeanor, just one step up from jay walking? It is said that justice is blind. Ladies and gentlemen, nothing could be further from the truth!

Next come the complex, conflicting demands of the correctional experience itself. Punishment, by its very nature, is a most unnatural business: no one is born to live in a cage, or to keep a person in one. It is therefore intrinsically artificial, arbitrary and painful for everyone, the keepers right along with the kept. The artificial division between the institution and the community creates a deadly no man's land for trainers and students alike. While the moment of release is a dividing line for practitioners, it is only a mid-point in a long, complex journey for the client. Where is the potential for continuity and follow through? Where is the chance to provide encouragement and support for the application of newly acquired insight and skill?

On the systemic level, we confront the glaring lack of a positive universal service objective! Without a system-wide commitment to a positive goal, inordinate amounts of time and energy are squandered on make-busy tasks having little or no bearing on client improvement or the public safety of the community. Moreover, since the first jail opened in 1789, punishment has been king and treatment only an ugly step child. This has resulted in:

• low to no concern for client improvement,

• totally inadequate budgets,

• token, ineffectual service delivery, and

• virtually no sense of meaningful job satisfaction.

So, here we are, surrounded by hypocrisy and injustice, absent a positive mission, lacking adequate support, and devoid of the essential resources and the specialized training needed in this unique social arena. At the same time we're expected to be professional educators, social workers (better yet, miracle workers), and role models, but whose first priority and overriding duty is the safe and orderly operation of the institution.

What's wrong with this picture? From a systems perspective, this array of limits and conflicts equates to programmatic paralysis. And how in the world can we go home at the end of the day feeling good about our function?! In short, we work in a state of perpetual conflict and unending inertia, having to constantly sort out and justify who we are and why we are.

Now...as if you don't have enough problems, we come to the extreme demands attached to interacting with your often pathological clients. Have you ever suspected that your students are actually Martians disguised as criminals? Human beings, you may reason, could never act so irresponsibly and then concoct so many absurd ways to justify it!! So after your daily administrative burdens, most remaining time is spent coping with the psycho-social confusion and learning disabilities that come with the turf.

Every teacher and counselor has a student who wants to be an astronaut...if only he or she could read! As you well know, the level and degree of creative delusion our clients adopt can seem infinite. I've worked with 25,000 or so offenders and without exception the biggest single problem in dealing with cons and ex-cons is false expectation. And the family or loved ones of prisoners go through much the same trip. In the end, many buy into the "last lifeboat" approach, the fallacy that there is only one major problem and that will be resolved the day of release.

In fact, we often encounter folks in this crazy business who view themselves as set apart from the universe! Their world view is the polar opposite of what we normally expect. This is part of a process of evolving alienation--an inherent, automatic distancing process that takes place between the powerful and the powerless and that leads to widely divergent values and goals. After 15 years tracking the dynamics of alienation, its roots and impact, it frightens me to admit that I'm actually beginning to understand it! And from the position of a trainer and counselor, it's hell trying to function in an environment where illogic is often the most logical course of action!

As teachers, we all know the vital importance of building positive, healthy relationships with our clients. We must have the trust and respect of our students to impact their values and inspire growth. And that means fostering that unique exchange of energy that best encourages and expedites positive reflection and change. In short, applying the special skill that makes a teacher unique. However, the psychology of alienation that abounds in prison makes any sincere relationship-building almost impossible. The pathology of prison too often acts to twist and undermine the ability of a teacher to relate to his or her students. As a matter of fact, anything that hints of cordial person-to-person interaction may be strongly discouraged as a matter of policy.

Last, let's face it, you have a major credibility problem! The kept don't trust their keepers, from top to bottom. Resistance is strongly influenced by the proximity of your efforts to the core value system of the offender. If you are teaching methods of brick laying, that's one thing. But if you are trying to demonstrate why it's in the best interest of the student to be ethical on the job, that's a whole different story! Trying to impart values and ethics to people who view you as the enemy can feel like that "final straw" that breaks your back.

A colleague once described the task of spanning the inlaw-outlaw continuum as "two blind men signaling with flags on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon on a moonless night." But above and beyond all the frustration and anguish we must often confront, building bridges constructed of positive ethics and behavior is at the heart of the challenges we face as correctional educators. And I KNOW from direct experience that it can be done! There ARE handles for the door!! Since '85 I've focused on developing inmate self-help materials directed at reducing this often overwhelming gap. Some of the resulting works are described in a flyer in your registration packet. If you wish to speak directly to offenders about why it is in their best interest to take control of their lives in legal and ethical ways, you may wish to review these materials.

In terms of impact on you and me, all of these issues can combine at times to bring us to our knees. One of the most destructive effects is the damage to our minds, bodies, and hearts...which often seems immaterial to anyone but ourselves. Through it all, Saint Peter would be hard-pressed to derive any job satisfaction based on a need for tangible, immediate results. So after a few years, most folks take one of two paths:

1. They simply burn out and get out...or
2. They burn out and develop a jaded, insensitive protective armor - your own prison! The lights are on but nobody is home. You do time on the installment plan: 8 hours a day while counting down to retirement, just as the inmate counts down to release.

So...why Bother? Why bother to go through all this? WHY BOTHER?? I am addressing your core motivation, the very foundation of your vocational purpose! You cannot leave this conference without a clear, distinct answer to this question! You must return to your homes, families and daily schedule with a higher, stronger reason to persevere and contribute!!

Story: Ten/zin Gy/at/so, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism, in his book, Kindness, Clarity and Insight, suggests that our primary mission in life is to become spiritually perfect and that the path to this goal is SERVICE to mankind.

I found this immediately appealing because it supports an identical conclusion I reached in a north Louisiana isolation cell in the Summer of 1974. In fact, this singular focus has served as the foundation for my past and present involvement in corrections... and the reason I am here today.

A few years ago I had the great honor of participating in a group meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and was able to ask him a question of burning importance to me which I think is pertinent to this address and its topic of commitment to service:

"What if a person accepts service as his or her mission, but ongoing efforts seem to end up doing more damage than good... or at best no good at all?!"

His response:

1. "Look with honesty into your own motives and methods of service. You will find a great deal of ego-driven intent and less than adequate skills because they have been developed for the wrong reasons. Strive to purify your motives: to render service because you believe it's right, not for honor or glory, or even the recipient's response or appreciation. Then improve your skills and rededicate yourself to your efforts.
2. Next, look to the motives and methods of the person you are trying to aid. Just as you have done with yourself, attempt to help him or her purify their motives, focus on positive ends, and apply useful, ethical methods.
3. Then, after doing both of the above, try again, remembering to be patient and not attaching your ego to the results.
4. If, after a sincere and reasonable effort, you continue to do more damage than good, quit immediately!"

He then leaned forward and said in English, with great kindness and compassion, "But don't get discouraged."

All this was from a man who since the early 1950's has lived in exile in India as he has watched his ancient civilization destroyed and over a million of his countryman and followers tortured and murdered by the Chinese. All this from a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his world-wide practice and teaching of loving service.

I would like to respectfully make the following recommendations:

• Above all else, review your true motives! What drives you?

• If you find that your sense of worth is dependent on public or political recognition, there will never be enough forthcoming to sustain you!

• If your level of achievement is based on magical turnarounds by your clients, you are pursuing an illusion. Your job is to model and mirror personal growth; it's a long term investment and resistant to instant gratification.

• If you are driven by the hunger for money and power, forget it---you are in the wrong place at the wrong time!!

These superficial, fleeting rewards will never be adequate to sustain the scope and intensity of the challenges we face, ladies & gentlemen, and in a strange way that is a great blessing because it forces us to look to a deeper, far more meaningful cause - the nature of service itself.

What the challenges of corrections offer us as practitioners and as individuals is an invaluable opportunity to define and confront our personal sense of duty. I have grown to believe the advancement of personal development springs from the formation of a sense of duty to self and others. In this context, I define duty to be "a fundamental cause or reason for which a person aspires to exist and to make progress in life." It is what each of us owes to ourselves to justify our existence; duty is the dues we must pay to achieve true significance and quality of life.

From another view, duty can be defined as action toward a positive "core purpose." It need not be some lofty, unattainable quest! In fact, the ultimate statement of duty is to make the very best of the hand you have been dealt.

The scope and nature of this self-defined purpose or "duty in life" becomes a foundation upon which subsequent ideas and actions are built. In fact, all thought and action takes on greater significance when it in some way supports this higher-order "reason to be." I must admit that it is hard, as the civil rights song said, "to keep your eye on the prize" but we must constantly take stock of our motives and be ever ready to make in-flight corrections.

In this regard, I offer the following suggestions relative to your function as correctional trainers:

1. Call for and promote in a strong, determined voice, the creation of a universal service objective. Take back to your institution the formal recommendation that policy be developed and implemented which brings every aspect of institutional life, security and treatment alike, to bear on helping the offender develop the will and skill needed to stay arrest-free for 5 years. If a person can remain arrest-free for 60 full moons, we know it is highly probable he or she has adopted a positive and constructive lifestyle.

   This is a task worthy of a crusader's zeal! For persons with a release potential within ten years, the overall goal is to foster offender preparedness from the very day of entry. From entry to exit, everything should be directed to achieving the competency required to complete five years of arrest-free life in the community.

   For persons with extended or indeterminate sentences, we must offer specialized coping skills training for everyone with 10 years and beyond.

2. In the classroom, do everything possible to promote migration of decision making from a subjective to an objective level: raise the student's level of awareness and promote introspective examination. The most useful way to do this is to teach and constantly reinforce the principle of cause and effect!
3. Strive to empower: insist that the client is the final arbiter of his or her own fate! Help your clients view themselves as worthy of the effort and discipline needed to confront and overcome their demons. Express support and sincere faith in their ability to defeat their dependencies, grow beyond past mistakes, and have positive, productive futures. And then wish them well!
4. No matter how profane the daily grind, never lose sight of the cosmic reality of CHANGE. Have total and absolute faith in the fact your clients are in perpetual change and that your energy and efforts must impact their direction.

The goal of human development is fundamental to our quest to realize our maximum potential as teachers and as human beings. This is equally true with our clients as they strive to meet their needs for security and significance. We advance best by defining our function as that of seed planters and dedicating our skills to the performance of service...independent of observable results.

In closing, I encourage you to re-dedicate yourself to the principles that drew you into teaching! Although one can easily rationalize that any help is better than no help at all, we nevertheless carry a fundamental obligation to develop and deliver the most useful service possible. This responsibility is based on a multifaceted duty to ourselves, our clients, employers, and the community at large.

Everything must be built on good intent! Monitor the quality and depth of your performance with a commitment to do it even better next time. Sharpen your skills, improve your methods, search for new, creative ways to impart positive change. Be ever mindful that the SERVICE you perform is invaluable to your clients and to the community...but most of all, to yourself! Only in this way do we stand to achieve the pride, satisfaction, and overall sense of significance we all crave. Indeed, only through persistent dedication can we find the energy and will to survive daily combat in the trenches of the corrections industry.

Remember: the concept of treatment is predicated on the underlying belief that people can benefit and that we can, in fact, render meaningful aid toward this goal. Maintain absolute faith that it really is possible for ex-offenders to grow beyond their pasts and to define and access positive futures. It is possible to find a handle to the doors which open forth into a productive life.

Ten years ago I worked with an ex-convict by the name of Bill McCaslin, who had a long history of criminal behavior, incarceration, and helping others recover from their involvement with drugs. Before he died in 1987, Bill wrote the following poem as a symbol of his faith and achievement...and it is, in an important way, a fitting corollary to A Door With No Handle.

IN MY WORLD

Bill McCaslin

I'm thinking...my life has had its ups and downs
Of both I've had my share
But looks as though I've finally found
Someone who truly cares
How sad...seems caring is a quality
Possessed by oh, so few
For some it comes their way but once
Rejected, took wings, and flew
Flew away...to search for someone else
To offer, nay, insist
They take the tender loving care
No better gift than this
Thinking...of course I'll still have my ups and downs
But it's okay, you see
Cause the care I've found will stay around
The one who cares is ME!
Just thinking...in my world.

I wish you well.

BOXES, BODIES AND BUCKS

I stand before you tonight excited and optimistic, hopeful that our brief time together may serve as a catalyst both to your immediate mission and to the public safety of the State of New Mexico. My primary purpose here is to propose adoption of a positive universal goal for our correctional process---one fundamental service objective which I hope you will see fit to accept and elect to champion.

Our modern approach to justice involves countless complex and conflicting factors. For example, America, the Land of the Free, has become the most punitive society in the world, with our corrections industry consisting of over 5,500 boxes, in terms of jails and prisons; 5.1 million bodies, by way of persons under immediate supervision of the courts; and an annual expenditure of over 72 billion tax dollars. So, given the magnitude of the topic, you may wonder how I have come to place such emphasis on a singular issue.

My views have evolved from 30 years of direct involvement in the factors and forces that influence the values and behavior of public offenders, both during and following captivity. But most folks have far better things to do than eat, sleep, and breathe criminal justice, so they operate at the mercy of the media, political scaremongering, and rational expectations of the way they think things ought to be. Their major blind spot is that no aspect of the punishment arena functions on a rational, logical basis!

Efforts to get a grasp of the big picture are further compounded by reams of conflicting statistics, mountains of political rhetoric, centuries of punitive perspective, and all the emotional dissonance the topic of crime gives birth to. So, lacking an objective, holistic view, most people take refuge in a host of off-the-wall anti-crime theories, policies, and practices, which for the most part have no relevance or constructive impact.

But even for someone with a Ph.D. in criminology and 40 years in the business, it is impossible to focus on a bottom line. WHY?! The answer is painfully simple: there isn't one! We do not have a system of justice, ladies and gentlemen; only a fragmented array of independent elements which serve their own internally defined needs to survive and expand. And as you survey each one, you discover a most remarkable and frightening fact. There is no hint of or concern for a positive, universal purpose. In short, there is an overabundance of "process" which serves to camouflage the fact there is no product! Therefore I am here to propose the adoption of a general service objective for the American and the New Mexico correctional industry.

Given the complex nature of our topic, it is prudent we begin by making sure we are all operating from the same point of reference. So let's define who we are and why we are here. We are here as social scientists; specifically as "systems analysts," dedicated to enhancing public safety and thus advancing the quality of community life. Our complicated problem is crime and the search for appropriate responses. And while we cannot find definitive answers to 2,000 years of deviant human behavior in 20 minutes, we can increase the depth and clarity of our thinking about this highly perplexing social issue.

There is a profusion of psycho-social forces which stand to retard or distort our efforts. Irrationality, denial, fear, discrimination, hypocrisy, ignorance, and an ancient hunger for vengeance all combine to cloud our vision. Our task is to transcend these primitive subjective reactions and pursue a goal of social reconciliation, making use of logic, honesty, courage, maturity, experience, and rational dedication.

This will not be easy! We must, with great determination, open our minds, rise above our subjective biases and focus on the systematic requirements essential to an effective pursuit of justice. So here is the task I set before you at this Town Hall:

To define a positive, universal goal which will simultaneously promote the safety of the community, the effective operation of the criminal justice process, and the legal and ethical conduct of offenders.

I suggest a suitable objective should display the following essential elements:

1. Comprehensible/simple;
2. Practical/achievable;
3. Measurable/can be validated;
4. Positive - relates to direct social and personal benefits;
5. Capable of a broad base of community acceptance and support;
6. Politically (and publicly) palatable/safe;
7. Affordable/fiscally sound;
8. Viewed as real and rewarding to the correctional field, and
9. Acceptable to and supported by offenders/clients.

What goal can hope to fulfill these demanding conditions? "Reducing recidivism," or the absence of recurring crime, is a popular but primitive attempt at a universal goal; yet it fails to meet the standards defined above. It is, above all else, the mere absence of something negative. And it is painfully ironic to consider reduction of recidivism a "success measure" when the correctional experience itself is the most powerful singular contributor to repeat crime in the nation! Please understand that when your scratch anti-social behavior, you find a base of psycho-social alienation. And I give you my word that no social experience in our culture alienates with greater depth and scope than being the prolonged, powerless property of the State.

Again, from a systems perspective, it defies reason to support an obscure objective that neither the correctional practitioner nor their clients understand or will support. For example, criminal justice personnel grow increasingly jaded the more they deal with re-cycling failures. Without a concrete, positive goal that stands to justify and support their daily work load, they blindly defend a process built on the perpetual imbalance of power and control. This, in turn, enhances client alienation at an exponential rate, with offenders, in turn, transporting a long menu of dysfunctions back out to any unsuspecting public.

Next, offenders surely don't give a damn about "reducing recidivism." Why should a convict, an outcast with the label of "habitual criminal," embrace this nebulous, one-sided goal of his enemies...those who enslave his body and strive daily to possess his mind? What's in it for him? What are the tangible rewards of mere "abstinence" from theft, drugs, larceny, etc.? WHY should he bother??! Simply "failing to recidivate" doesn't offer solid reasons, from a perspective he can embrace, why it's in his best interest to live a legal, ethical life!

My direct experience suggests that both correctional personnel and clients across this nation must be able and willing to buy into any proposed universal goal of the correctional process! Otherwise, they will consciously and non-consciously oppose it. This includes, along with the five million people under immediate supervision, all those who have been and are yet to be criminally disenfranchised! Toward this end, I respectfully suggest that the "common positive objective" of the correctional process as a whole should be formally defined as:

As you work over the next few days, test this objective to see how well it meets the litmus test of its ability to stand up both as a goal and in terms of its potential benefits. Also take into consideration what would be the concrete benefits of adopting this goal? In practice, I believe this goal would result in:

1. A system-wide focus on the creation of a value-added product;
2. A common goal for all program provision;
3. An essential focal point for planning and budgeting;
4. Enhanced staff cooperation and collaboration;
5. Infinitely greater odds of offenders' post-release success;
6. Tremendous financial savings;
7. Improved confidence in government and in the potential improvement of offenders;
8. Enhanced staff productivity, morale, and longevity;
9. Reduced client alienation and improved social reintegration;
10. Greater quality of life for all!

The State of New Mexico, along with all others, would be well advised to prepare offenders to be functional, well-adjusted human beings during the full duration of their supervision. It is not reasonable to kick a person out of prison disoriented and enraged, relying on an ill-coordinated, fragmented, inadequately funded, poorly staffed array of community services which have no common mission to act as the glue to hold them together.

If you want your streets to be safer, it is essential to build a consistent chain of competent, coordinated program initiatives beginning at the time of adjudication, demonstrating the means and rewards of 60 months of crime-free living. For the probated offender, the five year goal must be addressed throughout the full probated period. For those sent to prison, the same message must be provided upon entry into the state prison system and extending out to five years post-release.

For state and federal prisoners, I recommend an initial orientation workshop be conducted for all inmates who have a possibility of being released from prison. The workshop should be held at about the second month following arrival at the facility and should serve as an overview of the total correctional experience, from arrest to "success" at five years post-release.

The learning objectives of the initial training would be 1) short-term survival and adaptation, 2) effective use of the incarcerated period, and 3) long-term preparation for reaching the goal of 60 months of arrest-free community living. This orientation into correctional life would serve as the foundation for a series of parallel program tracks which would focus on teaching the life and decision-making skills required to flourish in the mainstream of community life. Each program track would reinforce the goal of five years arrest-free living and would emphasize the rewards of achieving that goal.

Post-release or parole supervision should function as a direct support for and continuation of the training and goals established during the period of incarceration. In this manner, release should be addressed as a "midpoint" in program delivery, with the five year goal being the focus of all client directed activity, both in the institution and in the community. This would promote much-needed consistency and continuity of policy and procedure, thereby significantly upgrading the potential for offenders' effective transition into the free world and their long-term prospects for crime-free living.

Above all, I guarantee you that the public safety needs of New Mexico cannot be met without the formal identification and unified application of a common, positive objective upon which to build all policies and programs. To this end, I suggest this "island of common concern" be established as "60 months of arrest-free behavior." Statistics (even more, practical reality) validate that if an ex-offender remains arrest-free for five years or longer, the probability of future failure is minimal! This does not imply that by remaining arrest-free for five years a person is "rehabilitated," "recovered," or "perfect." Nor can it guarantee the client is crime-free. However, it does tell us they are not active in the cycle of recidivism, they have developed reasonable survival skills and established an "investment" in positive community living.

Without this goal as a universal objective, you can change the color and flavor of the icing, yet it will never impact the true nature and quality of the cake! By embracing this simple common aim, the State of New Mexico can leap 30 years forward by manifesting the elements essential to creating a functional criminal justice system. Find a way to establish the five-year goal, and I promise you that you will have made the greatest single step forward in criminal justice since the first American jail opened in 1789.

I wish you great success as you wrestle with this and other powerful concerns the next few days! Be assured that my thoughts and best wishes are with you. If I can ever be of help to you in any way, do not hesitate to call.

Recommendations for Correctional Educators

• To best survive and prosper, assume the mind-set of a cultural anthropologist: be a professional observer -- look, listen and learn.
• As a teacher, recidivism is NOT your measure of success -- long-term human development is your goal, so do not base your self-worth or job satisfaction on "classroom conversions."
• Instead, acknowledge your true function as a "seed planter" and work within your short and long-term limits and capabilities.
• Adopt the goal of "five years of arrest-free living."
• Build constructive, trust-based relationships but -- maintain appropriate limits & boundaries -- expect to make mistakes.
• Reflect the values and behavior (choices and responsibility) you espouse -- consistency and continuity are essential.
• Expect resistance and frustration from the facility and staff. Remember that, in fact, "knowledge is power" and the function of inmate "empowerment" is often threatening to prison management.
• Stand up for what is reasonable and right: education and treatment directly enhance prison management and public safety. Therefore, you are NOT the ugly step-child of security.
• Strive to introduce fresh energy and beauty because you may well be the ONLY source of "life" -- you must constantly recharge!
• Accept the fact that your students need different things at different times; seek to deliver "the right intervention at the right time."
• You are BOTH teacher and counselor -- the functions merge in correctional education. LEARN GRIEF COUNSELING!
• Acknowledge that you are under great stress -- and that it is cumulative! Thus you must take good care of yourself and at the first sign of trouble, GET HELP!
• Strive to stimulate hope and the vision of a better world. Perceive your potential influence as a lighthouse in a storm.
• Encourage and acknowledge positive self-change: increase your awareness of, sensitivity to and ability to respond to "the signs."
• Constantly reexamine and strive to purify your motives: this is your foundation! Spend time on psychosocial "house cleaning."
• Be honest and honorable: if you do, you will be a good teacher and your efforts will be rewarded with constructive responses.
• Push yourself beyond your creative limits: do what you cannot do! The first time you must screw it up -- so always try a new initiative three times before you critically assess it!
• LEARN and GROW: expand your skills relative to adult parenting, adult education, grief counseling, and the dynamics of PTSD.
• This job demands a strong heart: you will survive and prosper ONLY by way of spiritual commitment and emotional well being -- nothing else will work and it requires constant attention.
• Maintain ABSOLUTE FAITH in the law of cause and effect -- an unshakable belief that bread cast upon the water MUST come back!
• And, independent of the pathology of the punishment industry, take pride and satisfaction in what you do: you are a teacher and there is no higher calling!!

Truth Is A Treasure!

The Role of Education in Corrections

Truth is hard to come by in our line of work. Even rarer is a consistent and logical basis for the policies and procedures we must follow each day. Adult corrections -- driven by the ever-changing winds of political trends and lacking the anchor of a positive, universal service objective -- displays its own unique brand of contradiction and non-reality.

The main frustration we face in working in the punishment business is not the pathology and resistance of our clients. Rather it is the paradox inherent in our function as correctional educators. While the educator part of our job description requires us to impart greater knowledge and understanding to our clients, the core mission of corrections is to keep these offenders power-less and under control -- and knowledge really IS power.

The means used to maintain control over prisoners leads to fragmentation of mind, isolation of body and alienation of spirit, all of which reduce the capacity and will of our clients to connect to and cooperate with the world. This result is in direct opposition to our role as educators and persons dedicated to human growth. So how do we best fulfill our vocational and ethical vision, given the barriers we face both from our clients and from the system within which we strive to operate?

To resolve this conflict, we must begin by re-examining our basic role. What is a teacher? Ours is, upon serious review, one of the most powerful and purposeful of all human functions. Why? Because we help others evolve! Not just change but grow. But just how powerfully and purposefully we perform depends on our individual definition of what it takes to be a teacher. Just how far are we willing to go? Do we content ourselves with merely giving information, or do we tackle the challenge of how to transfer understanding? Do we follow a standardized, one-dimensional course outline, or do we strive to infuse energy and creative excitement?

My definition of a teacher, given my background and perspective, is one who endeavors to transmit truth, buffered with compassion and respect and buttressed by an unbending faith in the dynamic nature of human change. "Truth" for our special population goes far beyond mere "information"; it takes in ethics, honor, reality, along with the rationale for and rewards of pro-social choices.

Of course, our job descriptions do not commission us to address these issues. And, equally daunting, our clients as a rule are not receptive to a direct attack on their core values. In fact, the historical nature of our profession is far deeper and more challenging than seems required by -- or even acceptable in -- our present role in society. But, so what?! Looking back, how many of the great teachers were rejected and, often, paid the ultimate price for their work?

So how do we address the CAKE -- the core issues and values which form the foundation of a successful life -- when the mandate of the system and the expectation of our clients are focused on the ICING -- facts and how-to information that will bring short-term gains? Well, first, we follow the instructions of Aristotle on how to deal with persons operating on a lower level of conscious-ness: WE FOOL 'EM.

Thus, you may let your students think they are learning to read or be drug free or to fill out a job application; but that is just the icing. The secret agenda is to model for them, in spirit and in fact, the qualities of character that are the true foundation of a positive, honorable, rewarding life. To do anything less is simply to serve as a conduit for facts; it does not fulfill the higher calling of being a teacher.

To fulfill this higher role, we must actually BE of good heart; BE in a state of constructive becoming; BE the ethical, decent being we are calling upon our clients to become. And we must do this while surviving and individually pros-pering in the twisted and conflicting environment of the modern prison.

How do we do this? Again, we must return to our definition of a teacher and consciously aspire to emulate the behavior of true teachers throughout time. This requires that we elevate our motives to a spiritual level, thereby divorcing our ego and self-worth from the short-term responses of our clients and the hypocrisy of the criminal justice process. From this perspective, we can strive to influence the evolution of our students, using as our primary tool the subtle, indirect influence generated by our own actions and attitude.

In short, our role as teachers is not so much a function of what we say or even how we say it, but what we are and our willingness to grant our students insight into the ebb and flow of our fundamental character and deepest values. This requires exceptional courage, but most of all, the clarity and determination to actually live those essential values which we constantly call upon our clients to adopt. It is through this level of commitment and service, and this level alone, that we can achieve the pride and satisfaction of both a job and a life well done.

Factors Influential in Post-Release
Success of Prisoners

Criminal Justice Involvement:

• how long you've been down: length of time matters a lot
• the conditions you've endured: how positive and/or negative
• your age now and how much time you've already served
• how you've used your time: personal growth vs. illusion

Awareness and Self-Understanding:

• access to and connection with your thoughts and feelings
• understanding and acceptance of the law of cause and effect
• level and degree of connection with your spiritual nature
• your willingness to accept responsibility for your behavior
• a vision of success and a positive, achievable path
• your expectations (of self, others, goals and time frames)

Self Control:

• how well you've come to terms with alienation (esp. anger)
• degree of self-honesty, maturity, sincerity & patience
• how flexible are you; how quickly can you adapt to new rules
• the nature and degree of your dependent thinking and behavior
• state of mental and emotional stability and balance

Values, Attitude and Self-Image:

• a burning desire/motivation to build a better future
• personal and social values: No Victims - do unto others
• your "attitude" toward yourself and others, etc. (perspective)
• how much you have "bought into" your self-image as an "outlaw"
• the negative reputation (criminal history) you've created
• level of understanding as to the true nature of freedom

Survival Skills and Relationships:

• your ability to meet and sustain basic survival needs
• your support system: strength, health, duration & consistency
• your ability to form and maintain positive relationships

Education and Skills:

• level of education & "understanding": formal and street savvy
• nature and depth of vocational skill & job seeking ability
• life skills required for day to day community living
• ability to adapt quickly and effectively to change & challenge

Determination and Duty:

• degree of determination to pay whatever dues needed to win
• sense of duty to make the best of the hand you've been dealt
• a commitment to service to others

BARRIERS TO POST-RELEASE SUCCESS

Systematic Flaws in Pre-Release Programming

PUBLIC ATTITUDES

• Public and political attitudes toward crime and punishment
• No public mandate for a value-added product
• Limited call for accountability of criminal justice system

 

CORRECTIONAL PHILOSOPHY

• Lack of a universal, positive mission
• Preparation for release a mere afterthought
• Lack of a roadmap for consistent, long-term change and growth

 

CORRECTIONAL PRACTICE

• Treatment and education activities often token, under-funded
• Inconsistent, fragmented service delivery
• Inadequate staff preparation and training
• "No clue" as to true needs and how to assist

 

OFFENDER REALITY

• Offender dysfunction and anti-social behavior
• Hostility and skepticism

 

NO RESULTING CARRY OVER INTO COMMUNITY LIFE ---

Defining "Success" for Adult Felons

"Success" for a person with a felony history is a dynamic condition of recognizable growth -- a purposeful process of positive unfolding combined with an expanding sense of belonging and constructive participation. This condition includes:

• progression out of past dysfunction and dismay into a state of present achievement and pursuit of future good...
• becoming increasingly capable and competent, while savoring the joy of emerging self-respect and the achievement of earned trust...
• a swelling sense of pride and dignity based on good intent, selfless deeds, discipline and a lifestyle that seeks harmony and balance...
• the gradual, consistent movement out of the darkness of falsehood and illusion, into the light of truth and reality...
• increasing recognition of and respect for self and others -- a conscious cultivation of the opportunity to "connect" & foster positive relationships...
• a growing propensity to value one's "investment" inside the circle...
• pursuit of higher consciousness and spiritual enlightenment...
• adoption of a lifestyle free of addiction and self-abandonment...
• an ever-expanding ability to laugh and love with fullness and delight...
• the freedom, linked with the power and control, required to make constructive choices and accept full ownership of their consequences...
• and, above all, an increasing capacity to experience a sense of peace.

Thus, "success" is a state of positive "becoming" -- an evolution, out of the ashes of past misdeeds, beyond the grip of sorrow, fear, shame and rage, into a deep appreciation for lessons learned, a commitment to make a rewarding contribution to others and a deep-seated gratitude for the nature and scope of one's life experience.

Psycho-Social Profile
of Newly Released Inmates

• Shock and confusion: hard time adjusting to change
• Short attention span: difficulty following through
• Frequent rage: inclined to mirror prison intimidation
• Suspicious and untrusting: tends to withdraw and stand apart
• Acute stress disorder: worry, numbing, disorientation
• Emotionally unstable: susceptible to mood swings
• Compulsive behavior: reacts without objective review
• Social anxiety: doesn't seem to "fit" anywhere
• Perceptually overwhelmed: too bright, too fast, too much!
• Hostile, aggressive actions: often hurtful toward self and others
• Desire for immediate gratification: displays very little patience
• Reoccurring cycles of depression: deeply sad, empty, dejected
• False expectations of self and the world: frequently frustrated
• Fear of failure and rejection: displays defensive attitude
• Alienation: views the world as "the enemy"
• Free-floating dissonance: general sense of agitation
• Hungry for companionship: prone to unhealthy relationships
• Isolated socially and emotionally: incapable of genuine intimacy
• Resistant to criticism or disapproval: takes things "personally"
• Dependent thinking and behavior: surrenders to addictions

Psycho-Social Profile -
Five Years Arrest-Free Living

• Marginal survival skills: coping but still vulnerable
• Rudimentary power and control: short-lived security
• Passable objectivity: growing ability to "stop and think"
• Slow progress altering anger into functional tolerance
• Capable of basic daily organization and effective effort
• Interrelates and cooperates with modest efficiency
• Slowly evolving respect for and from others: live and let live
• Borderline control over dependencies: open to relapse
• Operating in real time: present in the here and now
• Increasing tolerance of stress and adversity: stops and thinks
• Month-to-month range of stability/safety: "just making it"
• Fragile but growing mental and emotional balance
• Budding recreational capacity and involvement
• Significant distancing from anti-social values and behavior
• Growing hunger/impatience for expanded quality of life
• Slowly diminishing fear and rage: less and less panic attacks
• Still returns to anger and war talk as an automatic defense
• A developing sense of positive purpose: "in an upward spiral"
• Evolving feelings of freedom and belonging: expanding world view

Psycho-Social Profile -
Ten Years Arrest-Free Living

• Has adopted free world perspective: totally of this reality/mind set
• Increasing awareness of and attachment to community issues
• Greater buy-in/increasing social absorption/ever more to lose
• Distanced from criminal past: just another chapter in life
• Striving to reconcile past with present social values: needs help
• Beyond major pull of past but lacks sense of long-term future
• Basic confidence in ability to cope with demands of daily living
• Determined to function pro-socially --- when choice available
• Growing objectivity and self-control: slow but steady progress
• Practical command of most basic social "rules of the game"
• Modest (but useful) personal, social and vocational support base
• Basic job stability but lacking skills required for advancement
• Danger of couch potato syndrome: low ambition/minimal vision
• Needs impetus to take increased initiative for overall growth
• Periodic dependency problems and ongoing series of substitutions
• Subject to free-floating dissonance: not psychologically healed/fixed
• Improving interpersonal skills: dysfunctional relationships a danger
• Needs professional "internal work" to confront historical demons
• Self-image still insecure/fragile but self-worth/stability increasing
• On quest for "quality of life": vague and elusive but "out there"

Recommendations For Correctional Policy Makers

The primary goal of imprisonment is "public safety" and the same is true post-release, but it cannot be achieved by attempting to extend the controls of prison out into the community. Supervision following release, even under maximum conditions, cannot hope to attain 1/50th of the control which the offender has already learned to function under while in a prison! Thus, if the system has not made a positive impact on the person by the time he or she leaves the institution, “post-release management” is a rhetorical farce!!

In reality, a person's "risk potential" cannot be effectively measured within an institution, where personal decision making and free will are all but non-existent. The true test is ultimately in the free world! Thus it is incumbent on the correctional system to take positive, creative steps while the offender is in custody to influence and assist pro-social conduct after release. This function should not be confused with expanded "surveillance and control." No form or degree of post-release surveillance and supervision can hope to curtail criminal behavior if a person is intent on living an outlaw lifestyle. To have a real impact on public safety, clients must CHOOSE to conduct themselves in ways which render a positive impact on themselves and others.

The use of domination as a control method, although universal across adult corrections, is the antithesis of what is needed to influence the adoption of socially beneficial values and behavior. The core concern of adult corrections must evolve beyond human zoo keeping to a point of awareness and responsibility where we focus on preparation of the offender as a "value-added product." However, the process through which an offender comes to make constructive decisions and translate them into daily living is a highly complex undertaking which corrections addresses, if at all, on a simplistic, one-dimensional level (e.g., anger management, criminal thinking, life skills, cognitive restructuring, GED, etc.). When such efforts are ineffective, contemporary correctional "wisdom" interprets this as justification for minimizing the value of all forms of treatment.

To make effective use of treatment to improve public safety, corrections must adopt a holistic approach to release preparation which speaks to the practical priorities of incarcerated and post-incarcerated clients. This is a long-term process of guidance and support whose goal is to impart to clients both the ability to make "good," pro-social choices and the understanding that this is the best means for achieving their primary concerns for freedom, family and future. To be effective, release preparation needs to help offenders find both reasons and means to care about themselves and their role in the community. It can be done --- but not within the current mind set!!

"Successful reentry" must equate to "constructive empowerment." This demands setting aside current mandates to track and control the 36 million felons of record across this nation and instead tailoring correctional policy and procedures to facilitate the client's motivation and ability to live as a social "contributor" rather than "detractor." Anything less will simply serve to expand the already rampant criminalization of our culture.