Hawaii to hire successful parolees to serve on Parole Boards

[Kerry]

A news release I'd like to read

Hawaii to hire successful parolees to serve on Parole Boards

It is virtually impossible for a Warden, Correctional Officer or a Parole Board Member to read this entire post; his/her mind will stop reading when it come across a sentence that upsets them.

"The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." - Albert Einstein

A spokesperson for the Hawaii Paroling Authority announced that they are considering hiring successful parolees, former prisoners, to serve on Parole Boards. "Something about the way we have been conducting our Parole Board Interviews and our 42% recidivism rate reveals that we don't have the intuition, the leadership-communication skills, to experience when an inmate is incomplete or lying.* Often an inmate is telling us what we want to hear. We simply don't have the life-experiences, the training, to be able to tell when a parole applicant is incomplete, when he/she is dragging around unacknowledged perpetrations into present-day interactions. We just don't know how to create a safe space for truths to be told. Most importantly, we have not been taught how to read auras."

For example: Inmate: "I know I'm going to go straight, I've learned my lesson." As opposed to, "I've done a lot of lying, so although I sincerely believe I've addressed the source of my addiction to deceit and lying, I honestly don't know if I'm lying now when I say that I won't resort to former patterns." The communication model used between inmates and staff [academically referred to as the Adversarial Communication Model] does not support open, honest, and spontaneous communication, zero significant thoughts withheld.

There are three premises at work here:
 
1) Most inmates have not been acknowledged (caught) for all of life's perpetrations. Upon parole, because of their core integrity, a parolee will unconsciously set up life to get caught for earlier perpetrations (the ones for which the legal system has yet to catch them), consequently, many end up in prison again.

2) A lie, even an unconscious lie told during a Parole Interview, will produce undesirable results. That is to say, if a Parole Board Member is unconscious, they might not hear the lie. Inmate: "Oh yes, I've learned my lesson." Or, the biggie, "I fully accept my part in the fight."  The truths would be, "I believe I've learned my lesson." and, "I accept responsibility for intending the fight."  What happens is the board often grants parole to an unconscious inmate, one still addicted to lying, one who has not acknowledged each of the cons they've run on others throughout his/her life (read About Lies and Lying and Reunion Conversations). When a Parole Board Member doesn't catch a lie they become responsible (cause for) the consequences. In other words, a prisoner knows that Parole Board Members are dragging around their own incompletes; in truth they are pretending to be more in-integrity, when in fact they are just as addicted to conning others. What's worse is, Parole Board Members have yet to acknowledge their own cons and so there is no experience of respect, if anything there is resentment in the space. Rare is a board member who has acknowledged that their leadership-communication skills are responsible for their childhood friends being in prison.

3) Inmates, during counseling-clearing-rehabilitation sessions, have absolutely no choice other than to mirror the integrity of the facilitator/coach/therapist; therefore, the inmate can only be as open and honest as the facilitator is with, say, his/her own spouse or even the Warden. For example: Correction officers and staff withhold their judgments of the Warden (and certain prison conditions) from the Warden, yet expect inmates to be open and honest. Wardens and prison staff are usually unwilling to do The Clearing Process for Professionals —a communication exercise in which life's perpetrations are acknowledged; therefore they are dragging their own unacknowledged withholds and perpetrations into each communication with everyone. Withholds serve as barriers to the experience of communication. Put another way, an inmate can instantly tell when they are in the presence of another con, someone not quite honest, someone pretty much like all the teachers they've ever had, someone who can be conned.

I know of no prison that conducts weekend-long (35 hrs) relationship-leadership communication-skills workshops for its inmates, the prison staff, and the parole board members.  Such workshops, facilitated by a qualified coach, address the correlation (at the level of knowing as opposed to knowing about) between integrity and results; processes are designed to recall and verbally acknowledge the first lies, thefts, and abuses—the perpetrations and incompletes from which all undesirable behaviors were generated.

Most inmates, if given a safe space to tell the truth, could tell you which staff members are out-integrity.* Because there are so many "bad" guards there is no experience of respect of the Warden; the thought goes something like, "Warden, you obviously don't respect me because you've hired a staff member/guard that we (inmates) can tell/know is involved in something unethical, one who is both verbally and non-verbally abusive to us. What's worse, we can't bring it to your attention because of fear of certain consequences."

Addendum: It's a given that most cons have in fact mastered the con. Cons are developing and perfecting their leadership-communication convincing skills with each interaction in prison. Trust between inmates is quite common because perpetrations amongst and between them simply aren't tolerated; typical subtle dissing another, as is done in the civilian population has serious repercussions in prison. Inmates are committed to a code of respect unlike any in the legal business world. Parolees, upon starting their new job, are conflicted when they are dissed or treated disrespectfully by another employee or even an employer; they don't see any way to resolve such abusive incompletes through to mutual satisfaction and so they stuff their upsets, which eventually become dramatized. A parolee's new employer must conduct regular clearing sessions, they must provide a safe space for upsets, judgments, perpetrations to be verbally shared. Most importantly, a boss must encourage truthful feedback as to what's going on within the organization; he/she must schedule feedback sessions having to do with integrity issues and welcome suggestions for efficiency and profitability. The present communication model used throughout the business world is not conducive for a parolee wishing to go absolutely straight (read Parole: The first 24 hours). One solution is the Community Support Group Project, specifically The Community Support Group for Parolees—it's about teaching the public (via TV) how to positively support parolees—at another level, it's about supporting a parolee's rehabilitation by concurrently rehabilitating the community's leadership communication skills, the way of communicating that presently supports (causes) 42% recidivism.

* This is due in part because prison staff and parole board members themselves are not complete, they are out-integrity, they have not been acknowledged for all of life's perpetrations (lies, deceits, abuses). They have not done a clearing process and so their minds are partially clouded with unacknowledged perpetrations.

Note 1: A warden who has successfully completed a Leadership Training program would conduct weekly anonymous surveys. Three example questions:: 1) "Rate each of the following staff members 1-10." [Typically, most guards will receive several low ratings; guards who need coaching/therapy will consistently get lots of low ratings.] 2) What percent of the guards are involved in something illegal? 3) Rate the food for this week 1-10.

Note 2: Inmates and Parole Board Members should be able to read a transcript of each parole board interview so that they can review what worked and didn't work—ideally a video showing each face as it talks during the interview. If an inmate is unconscious and not clear about responsibility he/she might say, "I fully accept my part in the fight." At that moment the board's Chairperson should say. "Thank you. Please review a definition of the word responsible" and then dismiss the inmate. In other words, do not correct or coach the inmate about responsibility during the interview. They must be clear about responsibility before the meeting. A person who is clear about responsibility would not, even accidentally, use the word "part."


Last edited 3/9/24