Title: Triumph!
The Straight -A- Guide
How to Adjust for Success From Prison
Author: Michael G. Santos
Date: November 6, 2024
As a subscriber to Prison Professors emails written by this same author as well, Michael Santos, they make me aware of books he has written. While I’ve read many of them, when I saw this one, I asked for it given the book Derek and I are writing around success after prison.
I found the book very helpful from an inmates perspective, especially having 10 months under my belt now perspective now. It definitely resonated with me, which is good, but sad as well. Sad in that it doesn’t seem much has changed in the 15 years or so since the book was written!
The book itself does an effective job contrasting two distinct inmates in each chapter and their approach toward the “Straight A’s” of Success the author defines. One inmate follows the “A” model below, the other doesn’t:
Attitude
Aspiration
Action
Accountability
Awareness
Achievement
Appreciation
Each chapter does a deeper dive into the specifics on how to pursue hte topic as well.
Threaded through out the book, beyond the benefits of each type of “A” outlined above for an inmate as opposed to not applying them, is a classic summary of the prison culture environment and why the “A’s” are so important:
* Rule after rule can exterminate a man’s dignity and self worth as the months turn into years…..
* Prison environments have a troubling tendency to destroy a man’s will, as the system relies upon policies and procedures that serve to discourage or demoralize rather than motivate or inspire
* Men who buy into the ridiculous myth that that the best way to serve time is to forget about the real world and focus on time inside. Thus they surrender their will to perpetuating the cycle of failure that the American prion system is.
* Prisons being failure factories as distinguished from success incubators, chase out compliant servile inmates….
* Yet not a single mechanism exists to incentivize excellence
* American prison system aspires similar policy to like the Eagles sang in Hotel California, “where you can checkout anytime he wants, but he can never leave”.
Thus the purpose behind the list of ” Straight A” behavior the author espouses so effectively to deal with the prison environment and its culture therein.
In summary, my takeaway is he’s 100% correct on his ” Straight A” list, and its an effective method to use in doing so. Todays Prison Professors with its book repots, journaling and blog posts offer even more tools to do so.
Once I’m out, I fully intend to continue following the “Straight A” guide, including all 8 “A” items as part of my planning and activities. BJ
