Corrections_Today_Winter_2025-2026_Vol.87_No.4
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the Dallas Metroplex. I don’t re member a lot about the program or the dogs who visited, but it was clear that the medical and mental health inmates wanted to make sure they did not get into any trouble as that would cause them to lose their visiting privi leges with the dog(s). Upon transferring tio FMC Butner, NC, in 2000, one of the first living beings I came to know was Glock, a four legged, sentient being whose tail seemed to govern his presence in the institution. He did not meet anyone he did not like, especially if they scratched him behind his ears. I do not know whom transformed who, when he visited, A trained therapy dog, Glock spend a lot of this time each week visiting with the mental health offenders, who for the most part acted positively when they earned the privilege to visit with Glock. It is like Glock had a sixth sense to which inmate needed him the most that week. There was much communication among the treatment staff and their observation of the inmates to see who might benefit the most. There was a constant masturbator who resided on an outpatient mental health unit at Lexington. While he never got in “real” trouble, he was always bothersome, especially when he interacted with young nursing staff. While clearly mentally ill, he would find a way to get under the
skin of young staff causing them low level trauma, I do not even want to try and give a number of the incident reports written to document his behavior. As he looked forward to his visit with Glock. We told him that we were going to let him visit if he behaved himself for the week, but if he did not, no visit. There is no misconduct reports written, but he knew he was not going to see Glock for a day for each masturbating incident he was involved. Now his sentencing 4246, which required a continued until e USDC judge thought he could be conditionally released. There were also other “special” inmates who learned pro social behavior in spite of their mental illness. When we had a “special” inmate who took a lot of care, the treatment teams would always work on method of incorporating the dog visit by one of he therapy dogs, in establishing pro-social behavior on the part of the offender. Special credit to Commander Robin Jackson, one of our USPHS social workers, who worked to use the dog visits to achieve significant results with our committed population. Commander Jackson is no longer with us, but she will always be with us in spirit. The book Second Chances describes chronicles the time between 1993 when Joan Dalton structure was an indefinite commitment under 18 USC
Second Chances: The Transformative Relationship Between Incarcerated Youth and Shelter Dogs By Joan K. Dalton, Purdue University Press, 2025, 202 pp
REVIEWED BY Art Beeler. Beeler is a consultant and professor from North Carolina who spent 30 years at the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
I n 1997, I reported to the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, and I witness the reparative work being accomplished by a group of dogs with visited the medi cal floors and the mental health units. Lexington was taking on a new mission, that of a geriat ric health care facility for men, as the women house there were being transferred to FMC, Car swell, Tx. Which was a part of
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