We need to look at the worst as well…. and remember… who are we? who are these people in our prisons? Do we want to be the best or like those in the worse of the worse?

Helping Prisoners successfully re-enter Society

There are several ways to find and fund the positive reinforcements that allow prison environments to train and educate men and women for returning successfully to society. An initiative task of government officials and volunteers are needed to provide proactive remedies {more than one) for overcrowded prisons. In our communities, we find one of the major reasons people offend and reoffend are socially influenced and developed, i.e., through inactivity, passivity and ignorance. Edmund Burke once said to the effect, in order for evil to thrive all that is needed is for good men to do nothing.
This is where the negative effect is felt and the persons who re-offend enter our community. If those who offend do not have current skills and resources for coping with individual needs (social needs previously unmet), they cannot successfully re-enter our communities. Therefore, those who offend usually do so from unmet needs or unfair and biased circumstances in the past.
Shouldn’t the initiative for legislators, judges, district attorneys, lawyers, treatment providers, community activists, and corrections officials collectively be the same? Most people who offend will return to the same society. All Human beings need a positive sense of self-worth, current life skills, and a determination to thrive and not just simply survive in society. This is not something people should earn or even need to request. These needs should be automatically acknowledged and addressed. Those needs must be protected and provided without bias. Healthy self-worth is a human right, not a privilege.
If Department of Corrections is unable to adequately house inmates (an environmental social system), looking at sentencing reform which results in making our laws more humanitarian will be the first step. Most crimes we currently call felonies should be misdemeanors. There should be a realistic cap to sentencing. Unrealistic sentencing beyond a person’s natural life expectancy is unnecessary. What credit does one seek when sentencing a person to 25 years or more.
For too long we have ignored unhealthy social norms such as segregating instead of looking holistically at the problems and solutions. All segregation means is that we do not know how or what to do for fear of the inevitable i.e., facing the malnourishment and passivity in our communities.
I was sentenced to DOC after a few years of working in communities as a faith-based servant in my own community, attempting to serve churches and communities; proactively meeting the needs of people with the people.
As an inmate at Dick Conner Correctional Center, I have a vision for delivering faith-based services and programs that will meet the present needs of inmates on a present and flexible basis. I believe this could be accomplished by redefining and re-diagnosing terms respective to all people as equals (Inmate/Offender etc.) However, I also realize our reach is limited without cooperation from government officials, volunteers, community leaders, small business owners etc.
My desire is to introduce faith-based groups who want to bring a practical service or program to DCCC; it illustrates how faith-based groups can help address the needs of inmates. If the leadership in our communities has a duty to provide assistance, isn’t it to all. . . everywhere? If we are incarcerating people, doesn’t that environment need to reflect the same rights and privileges that are relative towards a proactive release? How we treat others either encourages or discourages an outcome. If we are doing nothing, we are still doing something.
Wouldn’t’ it be nice to see communities understand the full picture of what we are facing? If we are going to link our arms together in an effort to address the needs of people who have offended; who’ve became an inmate since offending, then why are we still labeling them offenders? Is it because those who govern have no intention to make all lives better? Couldn’t this give us safer communities and hopefully, reduce recidivism? Aren’t many too often reactionary, instead of proactive?
For each day a person is in prison, their likelihood of returning to prison increases. Three months after an offender completes a program returning to general population, it is as if they did not have the program. This has to do with the way incarcerated people must live. People must live in an environment with conditions they cannot control; conditions allowed by leadership. However, when an Inmate is prepared in a “green social” environment and returns to population, they succeed, influencing their environment. This environmentally will work only when:
People are returned to society by lowering sentences and their caps.
People are treated like people who have value.
Prison environments are replaced with the Ideology of treatments, programs and case environments.
People stop being forced to learn how to live in real society without realistic ability to live out those changes.
People are not classified (treated) as their cases.
People who offend become inmates (people in program) not numbers and cases in prison.
People returning to society have measurable goals with recommendations based upon accomplishing their goals.
People are released earlier through a higher percentage of Judicial Reviews at sentencing, to the strength of parolees.
People are allowed conditional release through involvement in community-based programs and support from faith-based communities.

We need dialogue that is motivated by a unified effort to incorporate best practices and will help us accomplish mutual goals. Once a person offends, they are not an offender until proven one. It goes without saying that once a person is convicted of offending, the responsibility of treatment lies with the State. The offender is sentenced and this is the punishment. After sentencing the offender becomes an inmate i.e., someone who is treated according to their need for re-entry.

The question is, what are we making broken people into when they resort to activities that offend? We must take responsibility for treating people like animals and that is why they act like animals. We treat our pets like people, and they take on similarities of human behaviors by how we treat them. If we neglect their needs, we are still treating them unfairly.
Sincerely, Loren Gier