Help!

Thanks for your comments to the few articles I have published at AC so far. Over the next five to seven years, I plan to publish hundreds, even thousands more.I am not writing, however, simply because I love to write. I have an agenda.

I am blessed to be approaching my 40th anniversary of transformation--Dec. 9, 2008--and after spending 20 years doing crime and serving time in prison, plus 40 years of transforming, I have 60 years experience in this process. Yet nothing I have said while writing here or any of the other websites I write for has been designed simply to draw attention to these tremendous blessings. I use the blessings simply as examples of what God can and will do in the process of transforming people from criminals to contributors. I believe that there are tens, even hundreds of thousands of criminals being called from that lifestyle who simply don't know how to leave; who have no guides from the wilderness of decadence to the "Promised Land of Prosperity by Service." I want to be one of those guides.

Consider the numbers. We know that 2.2 million people languish in the nation's jails and prisons. We know that about 660,000 are released annually, and about 75 percent of them return to prison within three years, following convictions for new crimes. I also estimate that about 10 million documented criminals live among us daily. Those numbers provide incredible opportunity.

Review the literature on crime, criminology, punishment, etc. available today, and you find relatively little information about transformation. A review of the literature reveals some works on why ReEntry Strategies are better than a focus on incarceration. You find works about how do perform some of the basic acts of ReEntry, i.e. complete job applications, find housing, etc. Most of it focuses on traditional strategies that have seemed to have had relatively little effect over the past 40 years. Hundreds of so-caled "faith-based" programs and projects operate across the country. Yet, despite all this the numbers of criminals, prisons and prisoners continue to escalate dramatically. Yes, I know that, from a certain viewpoint, crime, or at least some crimes, are down. I also know that prison populations continue to increase.

What's missing? I believe I know the answer!

From the early 1970s through the early mid 1980s, I worked the Motivational Speaking circuit, particularly going into prisons and presenting what I had learned and was learning. I spoke to prison officials, conducted workshops and appeared on various forums and programs, including a number of televised presentations about this complex issue of transforming from criminal to contributor. Sometime about 1985, as I struggled with an up and down free-lance writing career, along with some other employment and business ventures, I quit the speaking circuit, and began reviewing the work I had done. A general, overall review, not a formal study or survey, mind you, revealed that most of the men and women who had listened to my presentations had become recidivists, not transformists. I discovered that the North Carolina Corrections system has not adopted any of the programmatic policy and/or operational changes I had suggested in workshop after workshop. I learned that business and community leaders that I had spoken to continued pursuing, what I considered to be fruitless efforts at services delivery, with no real focus on transformation as a predictable, action-oriented, measurable outcome. This became another of many epiphany moments for me during the past four decades.

People, for the most part, don't do what they know to be right. They do what they know how to do! Therefore, speaking, presenting, even in a motivational format, what people should do will seldom lead to transformation in the minds and hearts of most people. Transformation is a way of thinking that must be taught, demonstrated and modeled daily in our interpersonal relationships for criminals to successfully negotiate the arduous trek from crime to contribution.

That's hard, hard work, and despite our weariness with the crime, apprehension, adjudication, sanction emphasis cycle, I wonder how many of us want to work that hard.

Despite all this, I remain encouraged and enthusiastic about the opportunities ahead. I believe we can reach hundreds of thousands of the millions of criminals among us, particularly those who are being called from this way of thinking. I believe that if we organize a T.E.A.M (Together Evryone Achieves More) strategy we can design a successful transformation model that can be replicated nationwide, even worldwide. Be clear, though, that I do not anticipate that these efforts, however successful they become, will, for the most part, reduce crime, or deter the major thinkers in the CAASE cycle from believing that punishment in prison makes more sense. Those facts neither disturb, nor deter me.

Consider my agenda:

I want to organize at least 100,000 relatives and loved ones of criminals into a national network of successful homebased business owners who can begin laying the groundwork for the incarcerated individual who wants to change.
That, of course, means I also want to reach 100,000 incarcerated criminals who want to change. Both groups, the NFLOC (Network of Families and Loved Ones of Criminals) and Former Criminals Changing (FCCs) will study an extensive curriculua of successful change. The NLOC will master a series of courses entitled Carefully Acquiring Paraclete Expertise--How to help change without enabling, (CAPE). Incarcerated individuals who enroll will master a series of courses entitled From Crime To Contribution--The trip along the Change Continuum (FCTC). This curricula will explain more than what to do. It will provide specific steps and illustrations of how to change. This curriculua requires three years of successful study and learning.
Then I want to teach at least 10,000 of those 100,000 successful Change Conquerors how to teach others to do what they have done.

That's the agenda, and I need your help!

With more than 2.2 million people in the nation's prisons, I believe that each of you know at least one person who is either incarcerated, or who is a member of the FLOC. I need names and email addresses, or other contact information. Let us make a difference. Let us work together to teach and train large numbers of criminals make the awesome transformation from crime to contribution. I know it can be done! I believe that together we can do it. Are you ready to get started?

For additional information, visit my website and read the material on the MPAC pages.

See you at success!