Making The Impossible -- Possible

A 'PILLARS of Life' Story

As you can imagine, prison has a plethora of restrictions. Nevertheless, like all boundaries, hurdles, or obstacles -- there is a way over, around, or under them without resulting in a negative consequence. In other words, often times we view things as impossible when in reality they can be very possible with the right approach.

pos-si-ble (adj) -- being within the limits of ability, capacity, or realization

-- Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary

The environment in which I live is boiling over with disrespect, drugs, and hopelessness. From my vantage point: greed, lust, addiction, poverty, pain, and plain ol' ignorance keeps these vices thriving. The living arrangements in many prisons (i.e. a large population of people sharing a condensed space they already don’t want to be in) can be a breeding ground for emotional flare ups and depression; which would be the case for anybody anywhere. And sometimes people who find themselves in these circumstances turn to these vices as coping mechanisms.

Its depressing to see the lives of peers -- people whom you genuinely care about – succumb to the pressure of these vices and fall to the wayside. What's worst -- is the feeling that you can't do anything about it. And with the momentum, force and power the aforementioned wickedness can have...being able to do something as an inmate that will actually make a difference seems impossible!

This is the exact predicament a friend of mine, Brian Batiste, and I found ourselves in 2017. We weren't "directly" effected by the disrespect, drugs, and hopelessness of prison life; only because we worked our way from the regular dorms to a more exclusive dorm known as "Honor Housing". To help understand the difference, some regular dorms can have as much as 80 people who share a single bathroom with one light switch for the entire dorm. In Honor Housing, we have a room to ourselves with our own individual bathroom, sink, light, and desk; virtually unheard of for a Louisiana long term prison environment! Yes, our living arrangement was better...but the fact that most of our peers were in the shape they were in still left us somewhat discontent.

We desperately wanted to help, but knew that desiring to help and being effective in helping is two different mindsets. All of the existing programs, while they may work on some level, are developed and managed by people who can only be empathetic to a point. We wanted to develop something that would be acceptable by the system and more effective in reaching the core of the participants than any of the existing programs have been; especially considering the fact that the situation is what it is despite the efforts of those programs. To achieve an outcome that hadn’t yet been achieved, we had to develop a program that hadn’t been done before; something for us by us. And since we wanted to be effective, we took our time (which ended up being several months) thinking through any and every challenge we might face and developed acceptable strategies to circumvent or overcome them.

Top five obstacles

• Group Name

• Prison Policy

• Effective Curriculum

• Recruiting Efficient and Dependable Help

• Peer Participation

There were more, but these were the larger obstacles we knew were ineludible. Let me walk you through how we approached each one of these seemingly impossible obstacles:

Group Name

To make sure we didn't just get labeled "that group over there" or some other undesirable name, we wanted to establish a name for our group that represented what we stood for; a respectable name. I learned that Batiste had previously been part of and helped establish a youth program called "PILLARS of Life"(PoL) years before I had arrived at D.C.I. PILLARS is an acronym that stands for: Personally, Investing, Life, Learning, Attributes, Regarding, Society. Since we felt this name represented our endeavor, we decided to adopt it instead of recreating a new wheel.

Prison Policy

The prison policy basically is against any group or group meetings that aren't sanctioned by the prison. There can be no meetings or gatherings on the yard nor anywhere else, unless it is known and sanctioned. For obvious reasons that is understandable; but we didn't want to be "sanctioned" because it came with too much red tape and instructions from those who didn't know the problem the way we knew it. This was probably our biggest challenge because at any time the "powers that be" could very easily dictate our fate. But we cautiously and respectfully moved forward holding ourselves accountable to a higher standard than what was expected to ensure Prison Staff would come to know that anyone connected with PoL operated with integrity at all times as individuals, and could be trusted as a group.

Effective Curriculum

We agreed to use the principles from a spiritual book Batiste previously read, by Dr. Myles Munroe, entitled "UNDERSTANDING the Purpose and Power of Men" as the foundation for our curriculum. Dr. Munroe's book gives an introduction into manhood, explains the difference between a male and a man, asks and answers what man's purpose is, discusses the elements of a male's purpose, and walks you all the way through man's redemption.

Along with that book, Batiste also had two other books "Character Development & Leadership Role Models Edition" and "Role Models Examples of Character & Leadership" by Joseph M. Hoedel, Ph.D that speaks to character traits that every human should strive to attain: Attitude, Preparation, Perseverance, Respect, Honesty, Integrity, Courage, Loyalty, and Empathy to name a few. These books have role models (someone who exhibited the character trait) for each attribute.

We used the principles and concepts from these three books to build our curriculum.

Recruiting Efficient and Dependable Help

Obviously a mission of this magnitude would need more than just the two of us. We needed other facilitators who are great examples of the principles in the curriculum to help pull this off. This was another hard task because as you can imagine, those guys were few and far between in this environment. 😁 Nevertheless, I took on that mission to find and vet candidates, and was successful in bringing four more brothers who fit the mold.

Peer Participation

Our mindset was to first recruit as many morally strong brothers as we could, because we felt that would give us a stronger influence. We didn't want to start with a lot of "bad apples" and risk spoiling the whole bunch. So at first we started with these distinguished men and then took a grassroots approach to invite others who were open to change into the group. Here are a couple more things around Peer Participation we had to prepare for:

• Attracting Measures | How do we get people to participate in a program that they will not receive any credit for going to because it isn’t "sanctioned"? How do you show them what's in it for them? This was basically all Batiste! He wanted us to surprise the group with special outings or cookouts because everybody likes to eat! 😁 Participating in a cookout while in prison can be likened to the atmosphere of that rooftop scene in the movie Shaw Shank Redemption; kind of like a moment of ‘normalcy’. Plus the food was an added incentive for anyone dedicating their time. The trick though was -- again -- we aren't sanctioned. One very important perk about being sanctioned is sponsorships – which we didn’t have. So we had to foot the bill for everything -- the cookouts, coffee, and snacks -- ourselves; and that's what we did.

• Selfish Agendas | In prison, EVERYONE wants to get out. Oftentimes Inmates will get in front of a sanctioned group for the sole purpose of trying to propel themselves to freedom or to make themselves look good for "the man". This wasn’t in the hearts or minds of Brian nor myself, and it would diminish the integrity and genuineness of the ‘for us by us’ concept we worked so hard to develop. The decision to be part of PoL had to come from that inner desire to have the strength to be and operate as a men despite the environment. So we had to constantly make sure that mentality didn't exist in our group.

Now that you're familiar with most of our obstacles and the mentality we had at attacking them, you're probably curious about some of our results. The ‘for us by us’ grassroots approach we took, our sincerity, love and resources made way for a type of acceptance from Dixon Correctional Institution (DCI) Staff that we didn't expect.

• PoL has become a household name among DCI population; Inmates, Officers and Wardens know and respect everything the group stands for.

• We've been allowed to have guest -- without a lot of red tape that every other group MUST go through.

• Secretary James LeBlanc himself, the head person over Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections, came to visit our group as a guest speaker at one of our meetings.

• Corey Webster, a retired professional football player of the "New York Giants" also visited our group as a guest speaker, and is looking for another opportunity to visit again as soon as COVID restrictions subside. Click here to hear from Corey Webster directly on his visit to DCI.

• Quite a few guys from other Units literally begged us to bring the P.O.L. to their Units. Unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions, we haven't been able to accomplish that yet.

• About four months ago, somebody on Unit - 1 wrote the Wardens about starting a positive group on that unit to help circumvent some of the madness they face on a daily basis. Well, the Wardens responded by referring that person to our group. That's big! The Wardens went on to setup a meeting for all of us -- the Wardens, P.O.L. Leaders, and the guys trying to start a group -- to see how to make that vision possible. The meeting went well, but once again COVID restrictions have postponed implementation.

• All of the cookouts we've had were unprecedented. As rewards for our members who successfully demonstrated the principles taught in our curriculum in their everyday lives, we hosted a ‘for us by us’ fish fry and a Bar-B-Q cookout; both of which took place outdoors with minimal security staff required despite the fact that eating is only allowed in the cafeteria. None of these things have been done at DCI or any other Louisiana prison -- as far as we know.

Despite everything else stated, the most important thing is we've offered a consistent option of hope and morality for every male in our radius. Has DCI changed tremendously since our inception? Unfortunately no......well, not yet. 😁 However, being dedicated to this group reiterates its principles within me and keeps me sharp. So if no one else benefits -- I do, and I'm sure this is also true for the other PoL Facilitators. I can also bear witness to the growth of some of our members; and I expect their influence will be felt by someone else, and so on, and so on. 😁

Four of our dedicated facilitators have moved on from DCI, including Brian Batiste. Nevertheless, all of us are still living by the principles in the PoL curriculum wherever we are. Two out of the four facilitators have gone home to their families. And check this out: I'm still in contact with all four of them! 😁

The accomplishments and the results we have received (and are still receiving) are all proof that we've been making the impossible -- possible. If we can do it, you can do it too.

Nothing is impossible.

..................................................................

im-pos-si-ble (adj) -- imagined limits of ability or capacity

-- Soul's Dictionary

It is possible 😁

Much Love,

Soul