Corrections_Today_November_December_2023_Vol.85_No.6

NEWS&VIEWS

CORRECTIONAL CHAPLAIN PERSPECTIVES

The challenge to change By Katherine Vockins, DHL A s inherent in its very name, the correctional system is challenged with the task of

up under the overwhelming social conditions of poverty, poor educa tion, neglect, trauma, and racism that places many on a criminal path lead ing to incarceration. In a correctional setting, the highest priorities are discipline, order, and security. Prisons are not equipped to help a population with these overwhelming challenges even if they had the training, culture, and resources to make it happen. Until these policies are in place in correc tional settings, let me tell you about a model prison reentry program that is available now, that not only changes lives — it transforms them.

The Reimagining Myself ® Transitional Reentry Program was developed by Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) ® , a non profit organization founded at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in 1996. It now teaches a wide variety of art programs, serving more than 250 incarcerated men and women in 7 prisons in the New York State system. It models an approach to criminal justice based on human dig nity rather than punishment and uses the arts as vehicles to develop critical life skills. This program works because 1.) hundreds of RTA participants

affecting change in people placed in their care — a change from antiso cial and criminal behavior to one of adapting to the social and moral rules and norms of our society. They must also ensure the safety of the correctional staff that supervise them and then release the formerly incarcerated ready to return to society as law-bidding, tax-paying solid citizens. This is a tall order for institutions where recidivism is the telltale indicator of success and over 60% of released prisoners return to prison within 3 years. Humans have re

flected on the challenge to change from Heracli tus’s quote in 500BC, “Nothing is constant except change,” to John F. Kennedy’s “Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future”. From experi ence, we know human behavior is difficult to change. Consider how much harder it is for the many who grew

Cartoon courtesy Charles Moore

Reimagining Myself Program — Formerly Incarcerated Artwork and Quote Used in Student Workbook.

8 — November/December 2023 Corrections Today