Week 3: Classification and Rehabilitation

FROM THE OUTSIDE, LOOKING IN: Middleton House of Correction
Citizens Academy

Week 3: Classification and Rehabilitation

- Attendance at the Citizens Academy continues to drop, down to fifteen tonight. More of us are starting to ask questions at least so the group is getting slightly livelier. Sheriff Cousins has not made an appearance yet, although he was scheduled to welcome us at the first session. I had an impromptu conversation with him at a fundraiser for one of the Newburyport City Councilors earlier in the week. I introduced myself and told him that I’d been participating in the Citizens Academy at the prison. He told me that he hoped to make an appearance there soon and that he was glad that the program is being offered since most people do not know what he does. After three sessions, I still have no idea what he does, but it has been extremely informative learning about what the rest of the employees do within the correctional system. Sheriff Cousins did say that his goal is to reduce recidivism. How that is done was the subject of tonight’s session.

- Captain Kevin French, in charge of transportation and employed at Middleton since its inception spoke to us about the classification of inmates once they are arrested. The purpose of classification is to determine the needs and requirements of each prisoner and to assign housing units and programs accordingly, given the existing resources. It is stated in the Classification System Goals and Objectives 942.06 that “it is to enhance the potential for the inmates’ reintegration to a successful, law abiding and community life.”

- According to Captain French, a prison sentence is a time in the lives of inmates that they will remember because their minds will be clear of substance abuse. The vast majority of the prisoners have drug and alcohol addictions. In his opinion, alcohol abuse has been the most damaging, drugs second. An individual on their OUI with no criminal record is unlikely to do time. He would get out on personal recognizance and spend from five to seven thousand on a court-ordered recovery program. Other individuals without a history of violence or not in need of a rehabilitation program may serve their time in a minimum security unit at the farm in Lawrence, women at the Women in Transition facility in Salisbury. Sex offenders never qualify for the farm and juveniles are transported to other facilities.
Following Captain French’s presentation, Gale Brunault, the program director of Alternative to Violence Prevention gave a talk on the various rehabilitation programs offered. Prior to working with the correctional facility, Gail worked for fifteen years at eh Women’s Crisis Center in Newburyport. The rehabilitative programs are far more effective today since they are evidence-based. We would be meeting three inmates that have been participants in three different programs later in the evening.
The most popular program is the Treatment and Recovery for Addictions in Correction program (TRAC) where the basic philosophy is to establish a positive, caring community environment where the men can focus on recovery and behavioral change. Most inmates have never experienced a sense of community, the feeling it is to walk down a street and know people to talk to. The program lasts four to six months and 80 participants are all housed together for the duration. They learn to identify with each other in a supportive, shared therapeutic setting.

- A second program, Alternative to Violence is thirty five hour cognitive behavioral approach where the participants learn to take responsibility for their own behavior. They learn how their behavior cycles, if not corrected, will continue to result in negative consequences such as going to jail, losing a job and destroying relationships with family members and friends.

- The treatment of inmates with HIV offers educational counseling and medical care management. About 45 offenders each week participate in Adult Basic Education or GED classes. Life skills and other vocational trainings are also an integral part of Middleton’s correctional services. All of the same programming opportunities are available to female offenders at the WIT facility in Salisbury.

= Finally, Captain French and Gail Brunault escorted our group from the training room of the administrative building into the prison where three inmates were allowed time out of their blocks to share their rehabilitation experience with us. All three had achieved a level of leadership within their programs and valued the opportunity to share with the outside what the program had done for them after years of repeat visits to Middleton. All three were in their 30’s and shared a similar history of drug and alcohol abuse. One individual wore a dark brown jumpsuit. Having been a member of a white supremacist gang he was housed on a separate block where those inmates were not allowed any contact with rival gangs. He spoke of the family tragedies he’s endured including the death of his father by suicide off the Salem/Beverly Bridge. Playing hearts with the other inmates was preferable to striving for reintegration with the outside world. Having become a dad recently, the GED program was successful in motivating him to pursue his studies and finally shoot for his release date in several months, with more tools in his pocket to worth with. Another who classified his charge as “criminal thinking” referring to the constant temptation he was faced with the easy money to be made in drug trafficking and the difficulty there is to resist that. The youngest of twelve, a father of five, he felt he had made great strides towards breaking the cycle of his behavior. The third man had been getting high since he was a young child. He described his sentence as the only time in his life he’s had some mental clarity. He had become a mentor for new prisoners in the TRAC program and could not say enough about it. I was not able to take notes since we were not allowed to take anything with us out of the training room. Captain French showed us a collection of weapons fashioned by common household items. The prisoners are exceedingly creative with objects they manage to get a hold of. Weapons have been made out of torn off wall paper. Bars have been cut with dental floss.

- While we listened to the inmates tell their stories, correctional officers stood guard in the room with us. At one point one left the room and was replaced with another and I noticed two of the inmates whispering to each other. I wondered what they were discussing. I am sure there is a quite a culture of relationships with different Correctional Officers, each one having a reputation as either good or bad, not much different than students discussing their teachers in a middle school. Even though the men were in their thirties, I couldn’t help but think they were trapped in the middle school stage of development. Gail even referred to one of them as a good kid and I didn’t notice any obvious discomfort on his part. It would certainly be interesting to be a fly on a wall and listen to some of their conversations. I’m sure their family members and regular visitors get quite an earful about the goings from the inside. These carefully orchestrated encounters are the closest I’m ever going to get there, at least I hope!

Next week, we will be entertained by the canine units.