To answer the question of what books have had a profound impact on me I would like to first nod to Mr.. Santos for his suggestion of Plato and the Last Days of Socrates. This book truly did make me look inside and check my motives and beliefs and I will be forever referencing Socratic Questioning for the rest of my life. (Maybe not constantly, 🙂 yet it will be in the equations when things get muddied.) Secondly, I would say that Shantaram would be one book that affected my perceptions in a meaningful way as well. This man’s journey through the dark side of things, yet with the constant movement towards enlightenment at the same time was very, very entertaining and thought-provoking.
I feel the need to speak towards your goals of preparing AIC’s for successful release; your reference to how hard it can be to find hope in here. I’ve honestly given up. Not on myself, yet on finding anything meaningful provided in Tallahassee FCI. It is a complete sham, they state they have more classes than any other facility, they boast this, it’s the reason I transferred here. In truth, the classes are not really taught, yet once you sign in they surely get the funding. Staff constantly miss work to the point the facility can barely operate. It’s like a culture here to do as little as possible, and it’s heartbreaking at times. That’s fine. I’m in prison and I do deserve to be here. I’m blessed to be able to leave again as well. My thing is why lie like you want to reform people when the actual effort is next to nothing here. This place should truly have all funding pulled until it shows the taxpayers it’s using it for its intended purposes, I highly doubt the recidivism rate at Tallahassee FCI is at any type of decent level, so my suggestion is until a prison can show they are actually doing the work for the funding through results, then it should be suspended. This would be through following up through the probation departments to see how well individuals reenter society. Now to be fully transparent there is a new warden and I would like to think that that is because they are seeking to change the narrative here, yet at this point the only thing keeping others from coming back is the fear of ever having to come back here. Which may or may not be effective. Who knows! Maybe that’s their edge! Hopefully, it works for me, lol, I can tell you it is highly, motivating. The only thing offered here consistently is this horrible MAT program, (which I’ve been offered a disquieting amount of times) And I do not believe there can possibly be good numbers for this program, at least on the female side as looking at the people on it is not that different from looking at people strung out in the streets. Sorry to rant but this has been my experience here.
Best regards to all who are working for changes, I can’t wait to be part of solution, and I will work to write in more.
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