Rev. Stan Moody, Ph.D.

POB 240
Manchester, ME 04351
207/626-0594
www.stanmoody.com

March 16, 2010

A Pearl in the Desert

While it was my pleasure to serve for nearly 2 years as a Chaplain at Maine State Prison,
I was forced to conclude that religious programming, while serving as an outlet for prisoners and
as a strengthening force in their daily lives, has limited value in developing the kind of life skills
that serve the public’s interest in rehabilitation of criminals. The data offers little encouragement
that religious programming in prisons reduces recidivism, defined by most as “re-arrest, re-
conviction and re-incarceration” measured over a period of a minimum of 3 years.
Prisoners refer to religious programming as “Jesus in the lobby.” You meet Him on the
way in and say “goodbye” to Him on the way out with little evidence of life-altering faith. There
are, of course, notable exceptions not only through Christian faith but other faiths.
I turned my attention to a political concern – how to reduce recidivism and cut the
enormous cost and human waste of incarceration. I found that recidivism could be reduced from
60% down to around 10% with a 6-month re-entry program that included 4 elements: housing,
mentoring, job training and drug and alcohol treatment. Two of those elements are very evident
in Maine’s prison system – job training and drug and alcohol treatment. Alone, however, such
noble efforts cannot produce impressive results.
Why is there not a concerted effort to permanently put in place all 4 elements through a
public/private partnership with Maine communities? The answers are many. Here are a few:
1. The Department of Corrections has a long history of rejecting community dialogue
and support. If reform cannot be implemented under its own rubric, it is paid only lip
service.
2. No State agency, to my knowledge, has ever voluntarily instituted a program that
would reduce its budget and its political reach. For some strange reason, ideas of
efficiently working yourself out of a job – common within private industry – are
foreign concepts to State employees. If an idea fails to build a new or larger program,
it is rejected out of hand.
3. Failure to view prisoners as fellow human beings: The system treats the
preponderance of prisoners as failures of society rather than human beings capable of
contributing to the general welfare. This is reflected in Maine DOC’s preoccupation
with policies and procedures rather than with programming that works for the benefit
of both prisoners and society. The ethic within the system is self-congratulatory for
keeping the public safe, no matter the means.
4. There is such a fear within Maine’s DOC of being charged with competing with
private industry that they have become defensive about training prisoners to earn the
kinds of jobs sought by the rest of us. This was reflected in a recent interview of the

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 new warden, who insisted that any job training would be largely in non-competitive
(and thereby non-productive) areas.
5. Corrections officers have a legitimate beef that they are employed to guard prisoners
who have more opportunity for education and life-skills training than they themselves
have had. Long hours and erratic, unpredictable schedules contribute to this disparity
and thereby breed contempt.
Gary Upham, Educational Director at Maine State Prison, is the pearl in this desert of
conflicting agendas.
In his “Proposal to Address Recidivism in the Maine Department of Corrections,” a thick,
scholarly treatise on the benefits of an aggressive re-entry program, Upham challenges the
Department to formalize the preparation of prisoners for productively re-entering society upon
release. The efforts of the Education Department within Maine State Prison to combat illiteracy,
offer GED and degree programs and operate limited vocational training are exceptions in
security and social service programming there.
Upham deserves much of the credit for initiating these efforts despite a tendency on the
part of prison management to resist any divergence from the well-ordered template imposed by
statute and court edicts while building a top-heavy, elite administrative corp.
If there is a flaw in Upham’s thinking, it is that responsible prisoners be viewed as
“clients” rather than the despised terms, “inmates” or “prisoners.” His ideas are destined to fall
on deaf ears in an institution intransigently devoted to remaining a growth industry. The trigger
for change, of course, will be a public demanding the kind of innovation that works for the rest
of us on the outside.
Upham quotes the new Commissioner of Corrections in Georgia as having implemented a
concept called “Transformation Campaign Plan.” This plan views re-entry “…not as a program
but as a correctional philosophy that should begin at pre-sentencing…helping make the transition
from prison to the community successful.”
Instead, Maine’s Department of Corrections expends vast energies attempting to justify
extended time in solitary confinement (or more politically-correct “segregation”) as a means of
controlling overcrowding. Having so abused the budgetary constraints with promulgation of the
status quo, there is little appetite for programs that were considered 50 or more years ago as
viable alternatives to warehousing prisoners.
Maine’s typical male prisoner re-entry program, with the exception of what Upham’s
department is capable of wringing out of its fragile budget, is 4 months of pre-conditioning in
segregation, $50 and a bus ticket, provided the ex-offender does not owe the Department any
fines. The alternative in better economic times has been the Salvation Army.
In my brief stint at the prison, I obtained a commitment by the AFL/CIO to provide job
training both within prison and outside. No response! Noted Atty., F. Lee Bailey, has been
speaking around the State on re-entry. Negative response! Upham had secured a $164,000
matching grant for his re-entry program. “We can’t afford it!” The re-entry program at the DOC
in Maine was trashed a couple of years ago reportedly due to failure to implement. With the
Justice Department literally shoveling re-entry funds out of the Second Chance stimulus
program, you have to wonder what is going on in Maine’s ivory tower of corrections.
I’ve had enough! How about you? Shall we focus on the new Governor coming on
board in January, 2011?