Kindle Notes & Highlights
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July 14, 2024 - April 20, 2025
Addiction usually refers to dependency on a narcotic drug, alcohol, or other self-defeating substances or behavior. However, it is vital to note the term addiction may also be used in a broader sense to describe an intense inclination, dedication, or devotion to something of value. Addiction can describe a positive pursuit.
Random Acts of Kindness Foundation.6 Their invitation: Be a RAKtivist – a Random Act of Kindness Activist.
It is often said that one has but one life to live, but that is nonsense. For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived…
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
I don’t want to know how smart you are; I want to know how you are smart.
Participating prisoners of the Bard program have a recidivism rate of 4 percent.7
it costs more than $60,000 annually to incarcerate an individual in New York State but only $5,000 to provide them with prison education.
the program’s purpose is to ensure that prison is “not a landfill but a recycling center.” Ninety-five percent of graduates have jobs within six months, with a 1 percent recidivism rate.8
around 600,000 prisoners reenter society yearly. Again, two-thirds of returnees are re-arrested, and for those returning to prison for ten more years, there is a $300,000 bill. The Rand Corporation found participation in any educational program during incarceration reduces an individual’s likelihood of recidivating by 43 percent.11 As demonstrated above, many education programs decrease recidivism dramatically more than 43 percent.
The buck stops with each prisoner. Though what the prison offers makes a miraculous difference, education and positive personal expansion cannot depend on what the prison provides. Prisoners must be creative in learning competence and excellence from self, each other and any other unlikely source.
the fewer ideas a person has, the more zealously they are defended.
“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.”
conversation with God. “If I don’t answer your prayers, you could answer mine.”
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
“My life is my message.”
The root of integrity is integer – a mathematical term referring to a whole number rather than a fraction. To have integrity is to be of one piece, consistent throughout, wholly authentic, and congruent with one’s sacred core. It is not being fractionated – having a different ethic for different occasions or people. It is having a single high standard of behavior – not some of the time, not most of the time, but all the time. I think of business innovator Clayton Christensen’s 100% rule. “It’s easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than to hold to them 98 percent of the time.”
Mahatma Gandhi. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
C.S. Lewis. “Oh Lord, please help me to forgive those who sin differently than I.”
Lewis B. Smedes. “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that ...
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“Some things are up to us, and some are not up to us. Work with what you have control of and you’ll have your hands full.”
Being forgiven by another person is not our business but the injured person’s business. Attempting to make it our business leads to frustration and often immobilization.
“In war, no soldier can guarantee success, but he can deserve it.” There is no guarantee that forgiveness will come from others or perhaps even from oneself. But being worthy of forgiveness is our business and is achievable. It results in a lifetime of service, even peace.
Advocacy for being one’s core self does not apply to those we refer to as psychopaths or sociopaths.
The crucible is not meant to consume the whole of life. Rather, it is to be a stepping stone to a higher life. Albert Camus, Nobel Prize recipient, reported. “In the midst of winter, I found within me an invincible summer.”
After decades of selfless service to her community, those who had not known her previous history came to think the scarlet “A” stood for “Angel.”
someone who loves you pushes you to be a better person and to strive for greater things.
it’s more important to know that someone actually cares for us
You do not heal with a whip – you do not teach men by making them suffer. The founding premise necessary for successful ‘correction’ missing is the genuine care, compassion, or just plain ordinary love necessary to lead one soul from error to a better life. Few people cannot be reached by the ordinary ministration of love.”
“Voltaire said, ‘Not to be occupied and not to exist amount to the same thing.’
I had cataract surgery more than a decade ago and walked away with new lenses implanted in my eyes. I saw life more accurately as it is. But seeing life as it could be – that has been a gift from mentors I have found in books.
I’ve decided to use this prison experience as my rite of passage. Reading and studying autobiographies of great men is a good place to start. I love Mandela! I’ve had a confrontation with God. Prison is God’s hospital.”
Mr. Abe. [I received the following email from a former student.] “I am doing well, really, really well. My wife and I have had two more children since my release. When I got out, society tried hard to keep me poor and victimized. But I went and got my PHD – meaning I was Poor, Hungry, and Determined. I finished my B.A. and my Tech School certification. I got my college degree and then never used it because of society’s discrimination. I found I could be hired as an independent contractor, so I started my own business and doing exceptionally well. The discrimination was an advantage because it
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“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails [and prisons]. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.”
Dr. William R. Kelly: “One would have to look far and wide to find a greater public policy failure than the American criminal justice system…
Failure to adequately address problems of poverty, mental health, substance abuse and public education all contribute to crime
Arrestees with mental illness, substance use disorders, neurocognitive impairments, intellectual deficits, financial, education and employment problems, homelessness, and other problems churn through the system and into prison, where the underlying issues that led to a lawless life are ignored.”
The prison governor refers to the prison as an arena for developing responsibility. “If we treat people like animals when they are in prison, they are likely to behave like animals. Here we pay attention to you as human beings. Here, I give prisoners respect; this way, we teach them to respect others. There are three golden rules on Bastoy: no violence, no alcohol and no drugs.”
My first thought of the term reentry was of a spaceship that has traveled outside Earth’s atmosphere. The launch into space is a miracle, but the mission is not complete until there is a successful reentry. Upon reentering Earth’s atmosphere, the spaceship’s exterior can reach 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The entry angle must be exact – if it is too steep, the spacecraft burns up. If the angle is too shallow, the spacecraft skims off the edge of the atmosphere like a stone skimming along the surface of a pond. An imprecise reentry is catastrophic, resulting in a failed mission and loss of crew.
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What is the mission of prison – the most essential thing to accomplish? Yes, prison must maintain security and order. But can we declare mission accomplished by reporting, “There were no escapes and minimal disruptions?” Or, what if a prisoner has served the assigned time, but upon reentry, is the same, or worse, than when entering prison. Has prison accomplished its mission? Of course, security and order are needed but must support a more fundamental mission.
“Creating public safety through offender success.”
I suggest considering the following prison mission: Elevate prisoners from convict to ethical, contributing citizens.
I include a list of objectives I designate as Society’s Standards of Excellence.
Character – Possesses integrity, reliability, honesty, and the absence of addiction. Teamwork – Promotes the well-being of others; works harmoniously, productively, and respectfully in teams; maintains a positive attitude. Self-Directed – Has a self-directed work ethic; takes initiative for achievement; has a learning mindset. Literacy – Skilled in reading, basic math, written and verbal communication, and basic computer skills. An Occupational Skill – training and successful hands-on work experience in an occupational area of need.
Prison’s Job One: Provide the resources, atmosphere, and community to achieve Prison’s Mission and Society’s Standards of Excellence
What better way to prepare prisoners to be contributing citizens in the community than to allow them to contribute significantly in prison?
Inside-Out Prison Exchange3 program, an educational initiative that brings together college students with incarcerated students for a semester-long course held in a prison, jail or other correctional setting.
The American Law Institute came to the unsettling conclusion that parole boards are “failed institutions.”
mis-prioritizing static factors over dynamic factors.
The job of the parole board is not to relitigate the crime involved but to evaluate the prisoner’s evidence of progress.
A choice is provided to each prisoner and is illuminated by John Oxenham’s poem “The Ways.”3 “To every man there openeth A Way, and Ways, and a Way. And the High Soul climbs the High way, And the Low Soul gropes the Low, And in between, on the misty flats, The rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth A High Way, and a Low. And every man decideth The Way his soul shall go.”
