Will You Embrace the A.S.L.A.P. Mission

It's often discouraging to consider rampaging crime rates, the upward spiral of prison populations, and especially the ever-escalating costs of crime responses, especially the challenges to build bigger and better prisons. As I write consistently here and at other internet locations, I base all I say on this premise: individuals choose to become criminals by adopting a way of thinking--an antisocial paradigm, if you will--by which the person justifies harming others to gain for self. That crime is a way of thinking provides a "bad news, good news" scenario. It's bad news when an estimated seven to 10 million individuals throughout our nation have decided to be criminals. They rob, steal, kill, pillage and plunder our communities, urban, rural, suburban and anyplace else where citizens live and can be victimized. Despite this, the definition provides good news, too. Criminals can change! Individuals can break the crime habit, earn an ever-free life and achieve their crime and prison records into insignificance. Criminals can make the arduous trek from crime and conviction to contribution.

In this article, I will lay out a clear, cogent path to change that I have codified during the past 40 years under the heading A.S.L.A.P. (A Successful Life After Prison). I will focus primarily on this question: will you [the criminal] embrace the mission?

This change process begins, as crime does, in the individual's mind with the establishment of personal policies and plans that determine performance. Therefore, developing personal policies for change constitute the initial step in this challenging journey along the Change Continuum. A policy is a planned course of action intended to influence and determine decisions, actions and other matters. For example, one of personal policies states: "I will not engage in any activity, legal or otherwise, that could lead to my arrest. Consider a couple of practical examples:

1. I do not fraternize with individuals with a known penchant for criminal behavior except and until the person publicly and consistently renounces the criminal lifestyle.

2. I will not have a checking account until I can demonstrate to my personal satisfaction that my commitment to honesty makes it impossible for me to write a bad check.

You see, neither of the examples describe overtly illegal activity, but they could lead to my being arrested. Therefore, I must, by personal policy, avoid these activities. The personal policies a person embraces while moving along the Change Continuum must be specific, measurable, aggressive, relevant and time-focused. When an individual develops, adopts and applies these personal policies, he or she must operate them in the context of an overarching transformation plan.

A plan is a method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective. As I mentioned before, every criminal who wants to become a contributing community citizen must adopt three fundamental objectives:

1. To break the crime habit!

2. To earn an ever-free life!

3. To achieve the crime and prison records into insignificance!

I learned many lessons during my 40 years of experience moving progressively along the Change Continuum, and I state one of those lessons this way: "proper planning produces profitable performance." You might have heard the same principles stated this way: "He who fails to plan, plans to fail!" I have also learned that a quality plan constitutes an operational system with the following key components:

1. A vision statement that describes a future picture of outcomes.

2. A mission statement that defines the planner's purposes.

3. A philosophy statement that codifies the individual's belief system.

4. A set of specific objectives, such as to break the crime habit, to earn an ever-free life and to achieve the crime and prison records into insignificance.

5. A set of cogent and applicable strategies for each objective.

6. A communication strategy for sharing the plan with other stakeholders

7. A timeline for accomplishing the plan.

Now, let me reiterate the stakeholder principle, a concept I discussed in detail in an earlier article in this series that I began in 2007. We all occupy stakeholder positions in this strategy to downsize the Criminal Industrial Complex, and each stakeholder group must fulfill certain specific responsibilities. The stakeholder groups are as follows:

1. Criminals who must learn to make the arduous trek from conviction to contribution, along the Change Continuum.

2. Crime response professionals (enforcement, judicial and correctional officials) who must learn to recognize and nurture the spark of change in criminals whenever it ignites.

3. Citizens who pay the entire costs of crime and who must demand change as the only equitable return on investments. This stakeholder group includes the Families and Loved Ones of Criminals (FLOC) who I believe must organize themselves into the NFLOC--the Network of Families and Loved Ones of Criminals. I believe this segment of this stakeholder group can become a formidable force in helping more criminals achieve A.S.L.A.P.

4. Careerists, professionals who make employment decisions and who must learn to discern the difference between conning and changing.

5. Change advocates, stakeholders from groups two, three and four, who learn to support change, rather than enable crime.

6. Change activists, individuals who were criminals, but who have achieved this second stage of transformation. Former criminal describes the initial transformation stage. In this stage a person continues thinking like a criminals, but has acquired the skills to avoid criminal behavior. When a person reaches this second state--change activist--the individual has learn and daily engages the process of transformational thinking necessary to achieve the next level of change.

7. Change conquerors, individuals who have completed the arduous trek from conviction to contribution along the Change Continuum. These individuals inherit the responsibility to assist others in the change process.

With that, let's return to the central issue of this article--will you embrace the mission? A mission statement is a brief description of your fundamental purpose. It answers the question: why do you exist? The mission statement articulates this purpose to all stakeholders.

Forty years ago--Dec. 9, 1968--when prison officials released me for the final time, my mission statement said: "I have sentenced myself to life in freedom. I will not earn any 'time off this sentence,' for criminal behavior.' I will serve it day-by-day, and in the process become a contributing member of the local, state, regional and national communities in which I live." About 15 years later, I had modified that mission statement into its current form:

I exist to unlearn old, self-destructive thinking and to master new, profitable, innovative, creative and enthusiastic thinking. I also exist to recognize value, to embrace power, to acquire skills and to purchase and use the technology I need for personal and professional progress. Finally, I promise myself and other stakeholders to engage only in responsible relationships, accountable actions, comprehensive commitments and enterprising economics on my way to becoming a change conqueror.

That paragraph summarizes the mission that each criminal confronts today. This mission challenges you, whether you are incarcerated, on parole or probation, or even between convictions. If you really want to change and escape the crime trap you entered whenever you adopted and adapted to criminal thinking, you must embrace that mission.

Thus the question remains: will you embrace the mission?

Everyone who reads this article occupies one of the stakeholder groups. Therefore, I believe it becomes your incumbent responsibility to get this article, maybe even this entire 12-part series, into the hands of other stakeholders, either by referring them to this website, or by providing them a printed copy. I have waited 40 years for this day--Dec. 10, 2008. I know the answers! I have not only talked the talk, I have walked the walk! More than anything else, I want to help tens of thousands of other criminals learn to successfully negotiate the Change Continuum, however long it takes, to make the trek from conviction to contribution.

See you at the top!