Our First Time at a Criminal Justice Conference

March 2023 was a first for PrisonCare, Inc. I got to attend the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences annual conference outside Washington, DC and present a workshop there.

I learned SO much sitting in the sessions with academics and researchers, industry professionals and activists. What amazing research is being done that points to the truth driving our mission! 

A couple of special moments:
* There is no consensus on what "REHABILITATION" is supposed to mean or look like. There is no way to measure it. The only tool used is RECIDIVISM, but that is impacted by so many variables that experts universally agree that it is not giving us an accurate picture of what works/doesn't work within a prison system that is supposed to be rehabilitative.
* Prison volunteers who stick around for a long time are typically people who have experienced some sort of "other-ness" in their own lives, who express that they have felt like outsiders or square-pegs-in-round-holes in a significant way. There is a special bond that seems to arise naturally between volunteers who have experienced marginalization and people who are incarcerated.
* There is what researchers call a "hidden curriculum" in Corrections Academies that sets in stone the "us vs. them" mentality that is actually so destructive to prison cultures in general. It is borne of a desire for safety and the need for a brotherhood of officers inside the wall, but its pervasive nature and the subtlety with which it is communicated means it is rarely questioned in a healthy way. This is how staff come to find themselves turning a blind eye to corruption they observe in fellow staffers. It is something that needs to be explored for the well being of all.
* Creativity-rich programming has a significant impact on recidivism rates. People who participate in things like Shakespeare programs, music creation, or dramatic productions are statistically very unlikely to recidivate.
* The widely-accepted Desistance Theory in Criminology presents the rehabilitation process as a gradual stepping away from criminal activities and mindsets that will, by its very nature, have setbacks. In other words, a person who commits a violent assault during the commission of a robbery, and who begins the personal work of rehabilitation, may possibly commit another robbery in the future, but it is almost certainly NOT going to be a violent act that time. People grow away from criminal behavior, and may do something illegal in that future that does NOT indicate that they are a lost cause who is set on criminal life. It is, essentially, applying what we know about human development in general to the process of life-change that takes a person away from a life of crime and leads them into a life of integrity and responsibility. Someone has not FAILED if they have experienced a moment of failure in their rehabilitative process. 

The PrisonCare workshop session was well-attended, and people were enthusiastically engaged. We had an interactive Penpal Encourager exercise and a great brainstorming space to wrap things up. The full video of the presentation will be on our YouTube channel in the next few weeks, if you'd like to watch it. You can also check out this episode of The PrisonCare Podcast if you'd like to hear more about the conference. 

What Happened at the Conference, Season 1, Episode 44

Excited for more opportunities like this in the future...a chance to LEARN and to CAST VISION to others!