Seven lessons along the change continuum
As I approach the 40th anniversary of my journey along the Change Continuum, I’ve learned at least seven amazing lessons that I believe form the foundation for successful reentry work. I learned:
1. We cannot punish crime out of criminals
2. We cannot build our way out of this dilemma
3. Individuals addicted to criminal thinking must change the way they think to become community contributors
4. Stakeholders in the change continuum must change their thinking to become successful reentry partners
5. The reentry partnership must achieve access to large and continual revenue streams to finance this revolution.
6. Grants, donations and even fees for services appear to be insufficient to finance a successful strategy.
7. Reentry partners must approach all facets of this revolution with open minds.
Trying to punish crime out of criminals fails!
Reflecting on personal experiences, I realize that my mother, aunt and others tried punishing rebellion from my lifestyle. They failed, not because they were not committed or consistent, but because I refused to learn the lessons they sought to teach. I became a person who wanted what I wanted when I wanted it, and I believed it was all right to harm others to get it. Over the past four decades I’ve interacted with criminals on many levels–workshop leader, mentor, even friend–and I concluded more than 30 years ago. Punishment does not deter crime. I realize that many others, reflecting on their personal experiences, arrive at different conclusions. Therefore, I submit the statistics as one indication that punishment fails. When correction officials released me from prison on Dec. 9, 1968, there were about 250,000 individuals incarcerated in the United States. Today, 40 years later, prison populations total more than two million individuals, many of them recidivists, with multiple convictions and prison stints. The nation’s dominant punishment theory appears to follow this specific line of reasoning: 1) begin punishment with a light sentence; 2) gradually increase lengths of sentences as individuals continue in crime, 3) at a certain point in a person’s criminal career, label them incorrigible and imprison them for life. I submit that if punishment worked, incarcerated individuals would not commit crimes while in prison.
Prison construction cannot keep pace with the growth in prison sentencing
One report I read estimated that during the early 1970s, prison populations averaged about 50 percent of cell capacities. In real numbers, that translated into about 500,000 prison “beds” for about 250,000 incarcerated individuals. Today, the nation has more than two million prison “beds” all filled, and most facilities operate significantly beyond stated capacity. Despite releasing about 650,000 individuals from prison annually, the nation’s prisons remain severely overcrowded. I will not delve into all the arguments about why prison populations outpace facility capacities. I believe this rather clear conclusion: the nation has not been able to keep pace with prisoner population growth and no theory or plan appears capable of changing that fact.
Criminals must transform thinking to successfully negotiate the change continuum
I cannot count the times people have asked me: “What caused you to change?” I also cannot count the the times that questioners appeared disappointed at my response: “I caused me to change,” I always say, “because I learned to yield to a thinking transformation process.”
For those who listen, I describe the following cognitive changes:
1. I learned to change my thinking, and when I did . . .
2. I learned to change my beliefs, and when I did . . .
3. I learned to change my expectations, and when I did . . .
4. I learned to change my attitude, and when I did . . .
5. I learned to change my behavior, and when I did . . .
6. I learned to change my performances, and when I did . . .
7. I learned to change my life!
I refer to this process as the thinking and perspective laws of 40 powerful principles of transformation. The other “packages” of laws include: the effectiveness principles, the planning principles, the continual action principles, the daily application principles, the C.A.R.E. principles and the T.E.A.M. principles.
Those 40 principles describe what I refer to as the Change Continuum. They constitute powerful, irrefutable laws of transformation that work. Any individual who wants to reap the benefits of these laws needs to simply align himself or herself with them. Then, how people feel and think about change activists ceases to matter. Those opinions, however consistently negative, cannot deter change activists from success.
But not only must criminals change their thinking, every stakeholder in this crime and prisons “downsizing” process we refer to as reentry must also change. The stakeholders, as I describe them include: criminals, crime response professionals, citizens, including families and loved ones of criminals (the FLOC), careerists, or potential employers; change advocates (individuals and groups working to assist successful reentry), change activists (those moving along the continuum), and change conquerors.
The reentry partnership needs “big” money to achieve success
This concept challenges all stakeholders on the change continuum, whether advocates, activists or others. Among other things, I believe this means that we must consider and adopt vastly different ways to finance various reentry stategies. I believe we must consider social entreprenurial endeavors that we often summarily reject, based upon rumor, inuenndo and suspicion. I will discuss this challenge more fully in a subsequent article.
Traditional revenue sources have been and continue to be inadequate
Grants, donations, even fees for services have proved to be inadequate over the past four decades as various groups, organizations and ministries struggle with a wide variety of reentry efforts. Therefore, I believe that without rejecting some of these traditional funding sources, we must consider new, even radical revenue-generating strategies if we expect to help more criminals make it from crime to contribution. I am not saying that grants, donations and fees are wrong, simply inadequate. Until, we help create the political environment that makes tax dollars a viable source of change-focused revenue, then we must use other methods to finance the downsizing of recidivism and the prison industrial complex.
Reentry partners must open our minds to new, innovative, creative and encouraging thinking to generate adequate revenues
The headline summarizes the money challenge we confront. I trust that an ever-increasing number of change advocates consider this challenge as a top agenda item for future discussions.
