Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The New Orange – Not Working Well


There are major differences between the convict of yesterday and the inmate of today. Dressed in the new orange these new type of offenders are not a fraction of the kind of convict prisoners were in the days of past when a man would work for a day’s pay and no handouts. It is with high certainty that there were cookie cutter convicts back then as they all had their own personalities and their own characteristics but back then, even crooks had honor.

Today’s prisoners are apples and oranges compared to the past and come with multiple personalities, characteristics, habits and mandates that makes treatment most complicated and diverse as some hang onto their own culture to show them the ways to live in their own distinct politically and socially impacted world and backgrounds even if it is in conflict with their current placement or prison setting. It is likely that the old orange had these same issues but kept them under control and dealt with them in their own ways instead of being a burden to those around them. Each had their own self pride and esteem to take care of business the way we call ‘old school’ and that was up personal and close yet confidential and private.

First of is to denote the differences in the penology theories there is a significant difference between old style rehabilitation and the new version of rehabilitation.  The old way every prisoner underwent into cookie cutter programs and whether they needed it or not, it was determined to be beneficial for them to be educated and worn out at the end of the day for working a job that was manual labor and considered hard labor even on chain gangs. Here there were no cultural divides or territories.  Everybody worked and pulled their weight.

Prison wardens had three easy choices, educate them, work them or let them sit idle and do nothing. Most wardens made sure that the prisoner engaged in at least two out of three with idleness being the least option in the book. A weary or worn out prisoner is a well behaved individual and keeps the peace much easier than those that do nothing all day thinking about how they can disrupt their world.

Today’s rehabilitative programs offer so many different programs that the list is too extensive to list. The fact is if they weren’t court ordered most of them were optional in nature thus often not offered or available. This includes substance abuse programs and other treatment programs that gives them a chance to quit an addiction or manage their anger more constructively and stay out of trouble in the future. Programs are selected like one was in college and if it’s one thing a prison isn’t is a campus or college driven environment.

The old system focused on self-esteem and character traits that counted and provided a person with good moral guidance and ethics to change their ways. The new system ignores the inner self and focuses on rethinking and retraining behavioral issues rather than morality of their character. The new style is holistic in nature and departs from the old style of faulty thinking and worthiness.

Contrary to the new whole person concepts taught, there is a distinct conflict between the two teaching styles for the new orange prisoners are given options in their sentences that were never offered before and allows them to balk at the project to stay busy and learn something.

Many are lazy and take no initiative to attend school or classes for self-improvement unless made to do so by court order or mandatory rules of classification and treatment plans. Rehabilitation only works if the person is receptive to the concept and work to change. Changing behaviors and not the person is a difficult approach. When I compare the two styles it is my opinion that the old style was more practical and more applicable than the new approach of trying to change the persons.

Everyone knows sociopaths can’t be treated and remain to be one of the most rapidly growing populations which are unpredictable and volatile while housed inside our jails and prisons. Thus these type of individuals require a stern hand and structured behavioral modification approach that builds incentive for good thinking and takes away incentives for bad thinking patterns.

The other rapidly growing population are the mentally ill and treatment programs for them are severely limited as well. Since psychotropic medication is very expensive and mental health providers are scarce and untrained in the prison setting, there are many challenges facing this group of new orange that are under the influence of a psychotic breakdown or mental illness diagnosis.

The old types of programs are no longer accepted because they do not cause the person participating to believe they are faulty but rather their behavior is faulty. It is the way of the new that has stifled the practices of the old. The new orange does nothing in the way of making people attend programs or school.

There are too many loopholes that keeps this from being enforced.  Participation is the only way rehabilitation has a chance at working so I believe the changes are not good and unnecessary and under the new rules, participation is rarely mandatory like in the old days. It is up to the prison administrators to ensure the new orange carries out their own self-improvement programs and attend treatment that would benefit them greatly.

The sad part is that today’s administration is just as lazy and weak as the new orange regime. They have no empathy of the setting and take no ownership in how well it is being run and administered. They rely on others less skilled or trained to their dirty work and are fast to point blame when things go wrong and quick to take the credit when something goes right.

They think they are an army of one and do nothing to help or support the correctional counselor or officers in their jobs and stand by to criticize them readily and never once ready to praise them when they do their jobs like they are supposed to and without any fanfare.

Many are college graduates that have never worked inside a prison before applying for the management positions. They are good at counting beans but lack the skill to manage people. They have no loyalty to the workforce and communicate in terms that are difficult to understand as they are often given without preparation or explanation of goals or objectives desired with a mission statement or strategy provided.

 

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Trust me



How many times have you heard this expression and make you either feel at ease or very uncomfortable. These two words can mean so much to some and taken for granted by others. The meaning of “trust me” goes deeper than most realize and should be taken with a grain of salt or pessimism as it does not always mean what it says.

Today we use abuse this word way too much. We say “trust me” like it’s a common word that we all understand and know what it means. In all reality what is trust? Trust is something of value and dependability.  Trusting someone is relinquishing control over something or someone and providing yourself with the predictability that everything is fine and things are under control and done in the manner or expectation or responsibilities implied. Although rarely seen in this light, trust is an emotion. It conveys feelings that are suitable for openness and willingness to expose yourself to vulnerabilities that others may take advantage of if given to the wrong person.

Trust is given by being logical about your decision making and choices in life. When you trust someone there is always a risk involved but based on your emotional bonds and your common sense that tells you have made a good decision it takes in considerations of probabilistic elements that tells you that there will be something positive come about on this decision and give you a level of confidence you can deal with ease.

Basically speaking most people can feel trust when they associate it with special persons such as family, friends or other companions in their lives. Associated with this feeling of predictability and comfort are satisfied feelings that reflect agreement, relaxation and comfort with the act of finding someone or something trustworthy of your confidence.

Life has taught two things for certain. The greatest average rate of risk is 50 per cent in most cases. It is either a good or bad decision or it is either a reasonable or unreasonable decision. It will either work out as planned or it will not. This is where predictability is measured based on how you think situations will occur or be resolved. Knowing who to trust or what to trust plays into this factor as you exchange information you have about your family, friends or other persons who you have placed a level of trust in. Anything less than 50 per cent is just a poor choice made if you have insight on what other people will do and how they will handle a situation when it occurs.

Last but not least is the exchange value of trust. In a relationship one expects love in return for trust. In a business relationship one expects loyalty in return for trust and in in business matters we expect a principle at work where you trust you get your money’s worth for the price paid.

Therefore trust is a perpetual feeling or emotion that goes with the mood or emotion of the moment as well as the sensibility in making good choices based on experiences to not fully knowing what has value and how much value it contains but are willing to take the chance that it is what you expect it to be or claimed to be. Trust now becomes particularly important, because otherwise we are giving something for nothing.

When we trust other people, we may not only be giving them something in hope of getting something else back in the future but we may also be exposing ourselves in a way that they can take advantage of our vulnerabilities known commonly as being “burned” by another person who you should not have trusted to begin with. Hence lessons learned are valuable assets in making such decisions in life and the workplace. 

Trust should be used sparingly and with wisdom. Once someone has failed your expectations and trust they should hold no more value at the same level as before to you and that broken relationship brings a lack of understanding that goes deeper than the surface for it impacts respect, love and dependability thus establishing the other person as someone unworthy of being reliable and having value in your life.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Corrections – a House of Cards


It is becoming clear by the chain of events that have occurred since the beginning of 2009 the Arizona Department of Corrections has been on a slippery slope resembling a house of cards that has been identified to have a flimsy and instable structure and a very fragile internal arrangement of management that is undependable and ineffectively put together that is definitely in danger of collapsing or failing public safety and the safety of those employees that work there.

Without targeting or identifying any specific position or person it is fair to say that its entire performance records has demonstrated ill and poor prison management principles that have cost the state taxpayers excessive amount of money due to its inability to control prison bed growth and its lack of using and implementing innovative sentencing alternatives within the community.

Applying the funds provided by the legislature that total well beyond the sum of one billion dollars and with the realization that the prison population has not grown in the past year and more plans are in place to expand beds, it would behoove the agency to re-allocate some of those funds and fix these systems that are barely kept together with a thread of hope that they don’t break down completely. Realistic assessments of the DOC will reveal weak infrastructure in many of their systems that have been neglected now for years. Specifically we need to address funding and attention to the following systems:

·         Information network system

·         Inmate classification system

·         Security perimeter alarm system

·         Fire alarms system

·         Staffing pattern and deployment system

·         Personnel retention system

·         Preventive maintenance system

There are many other sub-structured systems that are impaired or fragmented but essentially, these are the core systems that provide the public safety for our citizens. The fact of the matter surrounding such weaknesses is the necessity to fund restoration programs and prioritize capital layout funds to address these immediately if Arizona public safety is going to be taken serious. The reason for such dereliction is the lack of financial and administrative attention paid to these systems and the lack of funds directed at these important functions that keep the prison system as a whole accountable and secure in its mission.

Lawmakers should immediately draw up a plan and ask the current administration a preventive maintenance plan that will avoid a systematic failure or partial shutdown of essential operational elements in the near future that may cause the entire prison operation to be interrupted and have a cause and effect that could impact the safety of the public, the safety of the employees and inmates and the safety of visitors that enter these facilities on a regular basis.

Using the house of cards metaphor should illustrate vulnerability that exists today after years of neglect. Small house of cards are easy to rebuild but when a large house of cards fails, removing one card could make everything collapse. There is too much interdependency on these systems to risk such failure with such various individual systems. The large house of cards where the independent systems form above, are at the bottom and the integration layers are built on top. Here we also need reassurances to repair as you can see one card being removed and where the house of cards have collapsed.