© ENI 2010

 

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As a manipulative person's true character and intent comes through "loud and clear" regardless of their words, nothing counts to the inmate if it's coming from a negative view of the inmate.  This can't be helped if the approach is punitive.  Corrective actions just "shout" in the inmate's face (metaphorically speaking) that he's bad, wrong, or whatever.  This fact is backed by research and much empirical evidence.  The conscious and subconscious minds will always register and act on the underlying message it receives and believes in this way, and will tend to manifest the "wickedness" the underlying message conveys.

In psychology this is called self-fulfilling prophecy.  If we are told we are bad, we do bad things, thus fulfilling the expectations of others.  This is the message our prisons and "treatments" convey!  Doing so compounds the criminal's main problem, his negative ideas about himself and/or others.  We can't rationally expect a contrary reaction.  This should be self-evident, but isn't to many individuals or we would have a different system in place.

In regard to the fact that it is currently illegal to spank children in nineteen countries, the law recognized there were no "incurable" kids, only poor parenting philosophies and skills that fail to solve the problem (create the problem in actuality).  We have not yet been intelligent enough, however, to apply the same realization and principle to the area of criminal reform.  At least not all of us.

Author Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, winner of the Einstein Philosophical Award, and America's leading personal-transformation educator does a beautiful job illustrating how it works.  He was able to find people who already successfully employed this approach.  His example draws on the Bomemba tribe in South Africa.  He utilizes their approach in his own family.

Dr. Dyer's daughter had a problem, and when family concern mounted and everyone was exasperated, he unquestioningly and unthinkingly pursued the professionally advocated and socially accepted way.  Family meetings were called.  In them, each family member taking his or her turn, faced his daughter and explained how her problem had caused them pain and suffering.  The idea was to force her to face the facts in hopes to impress on her the errors of her ways.  Again, the philosophy suggests that this would force her to see what she was doing wrong and motivate her to change.  (This is the same philosophy behind society's contemporary approach to treating criminal behavior.)  Dr. Dyer's family persisted.

Then, one day his daughter, feeling tired and defeated, packed her belongings and walked out the front door of her childhood home.  Feeling put out, hurt, betrayed, angry and undermined emotionally - indeed cursed - she sarcastically apologized for burdening the family so by being the horrible person she was.  Now, outside the protection and safety of the family unit, she continued her drug preoccupation in solitude.  (Luckily, the law didn't catch up with her and continue what had been started.)

Ultimately Dr. Dyer, being a kind of philosopher and having trained himself to stand back and look at difficult situations from "outside the box," realized there was an intrinsic flaw in the assumed-correct popular approach he was using.  He began his journey to search of a better way.

After a long search he finally found what he was looking for.  This is when he learned of the Bomemba tribe and its approach.  When he applied this approach to his daughter's situation he was astounded by immediate 100% success.  His daughter came home, and in one application all the problems that had besieged them during their prior efforts were instantaneously and permanently eradicated.

In the Bomemba tribe, when a person commits an offense - which is very rare in their society - a town meeting is called.  A circle is formed around the individual in question.  Then, in a systematic way, since all those participating have had personal experiences with this individual, each person is given the opportunity to say what they admire most about this person.  The tribe's members are required to be honest, and to use past factual examples of times when the person in question acted in an admirable or positive way.  Everyone does this until all positive memories validating the person's good are clearly recounted.  Belief in what is good and right about them, and their personal power and capability to achieve good is thus quickly restored.  The effect is amazing.  It's analogous to changing an operating program in a computer.  After this is done there is an immediate noticeable transformation, and the person in question is healed - they are no longer inclined or willing to behave poorly.  Support, monitoring, and conventional treatments can then be employed to reinforce the desired effect when this method is employed in treating socially unacceptable behaviors in any society.

This approach works because it takes into account - recognizes and follows - the most basic law of psychology.  How we see ourselves - our beliefs about ourselves - dictate our behavior.  The belief in our rightness and goodness must come first, or must exist, or nothing else we do will help the individual, and this is the truth that will set us free.  This fact should be self-evident.  In order for criminals to willingly face and correct errors in their behavior this must be done.

Prosecutors, politicians, the media, the CJS and society often do the exact opposite in a highly sophisticated manner - in a kind of war-like effort to "take down" the target in as many ways as possible.  We can't circle around an individual and tell them how horrible a person they are and expect any kind of improvement.  This just compounds their negative beliefs which are causing their behavior.  Besides, instinct tells us this is wrong.  This is why Dr. Wayne Dyer's daughter left.  It sometimes becomes a matter of self-preservation.  These people will walk - or run - away and their attitude toward themselves (if they believe what has been said about them) and society will worsen.  In their mind they will feel increasingly justified and will more willingly engage in crime.

Circling around a person and telling them how bad they are is what bullies do, or in a way what cheap tabloid media does.  This archaic method on which the CJS is based is a vicious form of judicially sponsored bullying which escalates the problem.  It doesn't heal and it is very dangerous when applied to criminals who could be running your way.  It endangers society.  It destroys the innocent, excessively charged, good intentioned and guilty alike.  It tears families apart and strains all of society.  It doesn't recognize or heal the problem.

This country has been a general success because the ideas of intelligent people (our founding fathers) were employed in our constitution.  The lesson here is that if we want something that works, we must listen to intelligent people rather than our emotional desire to strike out or get even.  There are plenty of great teachers trying to tell us what to do.  Great philosophers, psychologists, dozens of self-improvement authors, and even quantum physics, all tell us the same thing; that our beliefs and thoughts determine our behaviors, actions or realities.  The corresponding science is clear, obvious and it works.  To reform the CJS we need to utilize this simple, logical means to solve our criminal (and many other personal and social) problems.  The effect will be nothing short of a transformation of our society.

In concluding our free public-access CJS reform series it seems appropriate to quote Marie Gottschalk, who in the July "08" issue of "Prison Legal News," says, "Throughout American history, politicians and public officials have exploited public anxieties about crime and disorder for political gain.  The difference today is that these political strategies and public anxieties have come together in the perfect storm.  They have radically transformed U.S. penal policies, spurring an unprecedented prison boom.  Since the early 1970s, the U.S. prisoner population has increased by more than fivefold.  Today the United States is the world's warden, incarcerating a higher proportion of its people than any other country.

"Thirty years ago it seemed unimaginable that the United States would be imprisoning its people at such unprecedented rates.  Today it seems almost unimaginable that the country will veer off in a new direction and begin to empty and board up many of its prisons.  Yet as Norwegian criminologist Thomas Mathieson reminds us, 'major repressive systems have succeeded in looking extremely stable almost until the day they have collapsed.'"

 

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