We’re excited to announce that our non-profit, Prison Professors Charitable Corporation, is in the process of developing a workbook for our newly established platform, Prison Professors Talent (PPT). We are dedicating extensive resources to make this platform a crucial part of our advocacy efforts, offering both micro and macro benefits.
We anticipate sending this book to each recipient of this message, and we hope to complete it by the end of August.
On an individual level, PPT allows participants to build a profile. Each person should use the profile as an asset, a personal resources to transform adversaries into advocates. With a public profile, a person has a space to document their progress and strategies for success upon release. We encourage participants to update their profile regularly.
In a broader sense, PPT is a powerful tool for our advocacy efforts. We aim to profile 10,000 individuals who are using their time productively to prepare for contributing, law-abiding lives upon release. By developing this asset, our nonprofit will strengthen our push for expanded policy and legislative reforms. Specifically, we’re advocating for changes that incentivize those who pursue excellence. If justice-impacted people have a place to live, a job, and a well-developed release plan, we’d like to see policy changes that will empower the BOP to allow such people to finish serving their sentence in home-confinement or a work-release type program.
Those programs don’t exist today. We need to build strategies that will make them possible, and our new platform, Prison Professors Talent, will become an essential tool. If we profile people who are preparing for success upon release, we’re able to advance advocacy efforts, showing the cost savings of sending people home if they qualify.
Since people in our community cannot see their personal profile pages, we are sending a letter through PDF to members of our community. The letter will include an image of a sample profile page. It should arrive within a week. The image will show the page structure of each profile, which I’ll try to describe below:
- — Top right: In this area, the page will feature a picture that you provide.
- — Top left: In this area, we’ll publish identifying information (name, number, location, sentence length)
- — Bio Entries: You can submit multiple biographies. We encourage you to write an initial bio that will help people understand the complexities of your life. As you develop your release plan, you should write more bio pages. Show how you’re preparing for success. Use your discretion on when to update your bio with a new entry. Let people see that you’re the CEO of your life.
- — Journal entries: We encourage participants to document their efforts by journaling. Show how you’re working to prepare for success. Describe the classes you’re participating in and the goals you’re striving to achieve. Each time you send a new entry, our interns will add to your journal. People will be able to follow along and see your progress.
- — Book Reports: Each time you read a book, write a book report. Describe why you chose to read the book, what you learned from reading the book, and how reading the book contributes to your preparations for success upon release. You will have a record of all the books you read, and you can use this to open new opportunities later.
- — Release Plans: Write an initial release plan. In that initial plan, detail the efforts you’re making to prepare for a successful transition into society. Update your plan as you make progress. Show that you’re not only thinking about success, or talking about being successful upon release, but engineering a plan that will lead to success.
Each time you send an entry, our interns will add to your profile. Visitors can choose to sign up to receive a feed, or automated email to let them know each time your profile publishes something new.
So far, we’ve successfully built profiles for 171 people. With the preliminary PDF explainer we’re sending through the US Postal Service, we hope to make these profiles a bit more clear to our community. I anticipate completing the new workbook by the end of August, and we will distribute the workbooks free of charge, to the extent that our nonprofit has the resources. Participants may also direct their family members to visit Prison Professors Talent (dot) com to get a better understanding of the site.
In this ongoing project, we aim to profile extraordinary efforts people make to prepare for successful reentry. We encourage participants to update their profiles regularly, and to draw attention to it by sharing it with others. They can use it to build a support network, in the same way that I did while I served my sentence.
The site will feature active contributors on the homepage. We want stakeholders to see the importance of incentivizing excellence. These profiles can help us advocate for reforms such as work-release programs, expanded use of furloughs, and the reinstatement of the US Parole Commission.
We invite you to create your profile, record your progress and join us in this transformative journey toward success and advocacy.
Building your profile will not only provide you with a platform to share your journey but will also serve as a testament to your commitment to success. It will allow you to memorialize how you are using your time inside to prepare for a successful life outside, turning adversaries into advocates along the way.
This strategy proved to be a powerful tool for me, and I’m convinced it can be equally beneficial for you. As we accumulate more profiles, we continue to build a compelling narrative, countering opposition to our advocacy work and further demonstrating the transformative power of preparation and resilience.
In essence, we need you. We need your stories, your progress, and your commitment to change. Together, we can build influential coalitions and help shape a more equitable and compassionate justice system.
So, we invite you to join us, to help us be the change we want to see in the world. Let’s build this platform into a beacon of hope and success, demonstrating why you’re a compelling candidate for opportunities that you can seize today and upon your release.
At Prison Professors Charitable Corporation, we’re excited about this initiative and look forward to profiling your extraordinary journey.
To build a profile, email our team at: Interns@PrisonProfessorsTalent.com.
Respectfully,
Michael Santos
