During my personal transformation I learned that crime develops from the sinful nature of human beings.
In other words, crime is sin.
Sin, translated from the Greek word "harmatia" means simply to miss the mark.
In doing crime, as in all other sin, you are breaking your life against the power of immutable spiritual laws, designed to bless those who align with them, and to break those who do not.
Additionally, change, the kind of personal transformation that guarantees that you will break the crime habit, earn an ever-free life and achieve your crime and prison background into insignificance, develops from a spiritual foundation.
No, I do not mean religion, or a simple belief is some set of dogma, or tradition laden doctrine.
I do not mean you must join some community of faith.
I do not mean that you must adhere to certain denominational dictates.
Rather, I mean that you must learn how to align yourself with the universal spiritual laws that govern all existence.
Over the years, I have organized these laws into three categories--Policy, Planning and Performance.
The dictionary defines "policy" as a planned course of action .
.
.
intended to influence and determine decisions, actions and other matters.
Therefore, it's not enough just to dream about staying out of crime and prison, or to fantasize what it might be like to get out and stay out.
You must establish personal policies that influence and determine your decisions about every temptation, every desire, every activity and behavior.
Your policies must be S.
M.
A.
R.
T.
This acronym stands for specific, measurable, aggressive, relevant and time-focused.
Consider several issues you confront as you begin to envision yourself being free from crime--a way of thinking that justifies harming others to benefit yourself.
1.
Where will I live and why will I live there? 2.
Where will I work and what type of jobs will I search for? 3.
When applying for employment, how will I position my past, particularly my records of crime and prison? 4.
When a potential employer turns me down, primarily because I am a convicted criminal, recently released from prison, how will I motivate myself to move on to the next application, true to my policies? You must think about those issues now! You see, your vision for being free, for making the arduous trek from conviction to contribution, will not come into focus just by your declaring that you don't want to return to prison.
I went to prison for the first time in December 1959, and in May 1962, when I was released for the first time, I declared I would not return.
Despite the declaration, no matter how sincere, I returned to prison in August 1963 and was released on parole in December 1965, once again declaring not to return.
Yet in July 1966, there I was back again.
Then finally, on Dec.
9, 1968, prison officials released me again for what turned out to be the final time.
Now 40 years later, let's consider what I did differently.
First of all, about five months before my release date, I stopped dealing with prison as if it's a normal environment.
I played no games.
I traded no stories about past criminal exploits.
Rather, I focused on thinking through and writing a long term plan for my life.
At the time, I did not know how important it was to establish concrete personal policies.
Therefore, as you plan for release, you have an edge because you can begin with establishing these personal policies.
As I said, make your policies specific.
For example: "From the moment I am released from prison, I will consider myself employed.
My job is to find a job.
Therefore, I will treat my job search like a full time job, planning and working this strategy daily because I will never again give myself access to crime.
" That's a policy statement! Your policies must be measurable.
Consider this example.
"I will acquire my second job after prison within 60 days of my release.
" Policies must be aggressive.
Consider.
"I will target the following industries, and the following companies in those industries, and I will make cold calls on the following companies.
I will make and keep at least 10 appointments daily, Monday through Saturday until I achieve my second job.
Your policies must be relevant.
For example: "I know that my crime and prison records are publicly accessible; therefore, I will reveal such pertinent information as soon as possible in my conversation with potential employers and will ask them point blank if they can believe that I am changing from criminal to contributor.
I believe you see the point about the personal policies you must establish before prison officials release you to the awesome challenges of making it from conviction to contribution.
You must also develop a plan to make that arduous trek successfully, no matter how long it takes.
According to the dictionary, a plan is a method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective.
Therefore, your personal policies, plus your plan, determine your performance.
In other words, when it comes to getting out, staying out and succeeding over time, proper planning produces profitable performance.
Operationally, a plan is a seven-component system.
The components include a vision statement, a mission statement, a statement of philosophy, a set of objectives, relevant strategies for each objective, a communication strategy and a timeline.
Remember, you vision must be more than simply a wish, or even a dream for something to happen.
It must be an assertive, positive outcome statement, or, in other words, what your life will look like at some point in the future.
For example, in my initial vision statement, written during the late summer, 1968, I declared: "In January 1980, I am a successful professional writer, working for one of North Carolina's largest newspapers.
January 1980 would be the beginning of the 12th year out of prison.
I knew that I wanted to be a professional writer.
I knew that working for a daily newspaper was one of the best ways to learn to consistently produce quality articles.
The plan worked.
During the Spring, 1969, I began writing for The Carolina Times, a Durham (NC)-based weekly newspaper.
Then in rapid succession, I worked for two other weeklies in Greensboro and Raleigh.
In June 1970, I landed my initial daily newspaper reporter's position with the Wilmington (NC) Star-News.
In August 1975, Walker Lundy, managing editor, hired me as a staff writer with The Charlotte Observer, North Carolina's largest and most widely respected daily newspaper.
Planning works! Your plan must include a mission statement, or a brief description of your fundamental purpose.
Your mission statement must answer the question: "what is my purpose?" I will discuss the fine points of a personal mission in the next article in this series.
Next, your plan must include a philosophy, aka an understanding of successful values and lifestyles.
In 1968, I wrote: "I believe I can learn how to stop thinking and behaving like a criminal and learn how to think and behave like a successful, contributing citizen.
This philosophical statement reveals one of the most critical points in this 12-article series.
To become transformed, I had to believe two seemingly opposing concepts.
I had to believe that I could unlearn erroneous thinking, aka criminal thinking.
I had to also believe that I could learn contributory thinking.
This point reveals also why so many programs and agencies fail in their efforts to help convicted individuals become successful following their release from prison.
Those who design these anti-recidivism programs begin with the premise that a person needs only new knowledge, e.
g.
a high school education, a college education, a marketable skill or trade, to change.
While those accomplishments are certainly important, successful personal transformation does not begin there.
To change, a person must initially unlearn error before he or she can successfully acclimate and live according to truth.
So in my statement of philosophy, I had to believe that I could unlearn criminal thinking so that I could learn contributory thinking.
The Apostle Paul analyzes this very challenge in chapter seven of his epistle to the servants of God at Rome.
Paul wrote: "I really don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it.
Instead I do the very thing I hate.
I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good.
But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.
I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned.
No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right.
I want to, but I can't.
When I want to do good, I don't.
And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway .
.
.
O what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?" (Rom.
7:15-24, New Living Translation).
In the King James Version, the last part of this quote from Paul reads: "Who shall save me from this body of death?" In this metaphor, Paul had in mind a particularly cruel form of Roman punishment.
The would lash a dead body to the back of someone convicted of certain heinous crimes in such a way that the person burdened with this dead body could not release himself.
Since the living person could not give life to the dead body, the dead body began to transfer a slow, painful rottening death to the living person.
Sinful thinking, aka criminal thinking works the same way.
In other words, when judicial officials send a drug dealer to prison, and prison officials teach the criminal to lay bricks, they do not necessarily release a brick mason.
Rather, they release a drug dealer who knows how to lay brick.
In other words, to become transformed, a person must renounce and jettison old thinking.
Then the person must embrace and activate new thinking.
Now your plan must include a set of specific objectives.
I refer to them as 'steps to the mission.
" Objectives refer to daily activities developed from your new thinking, based in your personal policies that determine all of your decisions and actions.
You are now more than halfway along the process of developing a quality plan.
You have a vision statement, a mission statement, a statement of philosophy, and a specific set of objectives.
So, now can you see the vision? Can you see yourself becoming transformed from a convicted criminal to a contributing citizen? Yes, it's an arduous process, but believe me, all the work is worth it.
See you at the top!
In other words, crime is sin.
Sin, translated from the Greek word "harmatia" means simply to miss the mark.
In doing crime, as in all other sin, you are breaking your life against the power of immutable spiritual laws, designed to bless those who align with them, and to break those who do not.
Additionally, change, the kind of personal transformation that guarantees that you will break the crime habit, earn an ever-free life and achieve your crime and prison background into insignificance, develops from a spiritual foundation.
No, I do not mean religion, or a simple belief is some set of dogma, or tradition laden doctrine.
I do not mean you must join some community of faith.
I do not mean that you must adhere to certain denominational dictates.
Rather, I mean that you must learn how to align yourself with the universal spiritual laws that govern all existence.
Over the years, I have organized these laws into three categories--Policy, Planning and Performance.
The dictionary defines "policy" as a planned course of action .
.
.
intended to influence and determine decisions, actions and other matters.
Therefore, it's not enough just to dream about staying out of crime and prison, or to fantasize what it might be like to get out and stay out.
You must establish personal policies that influence and determine your decisions about every temptation, every desire, every activity and behavior.
Your policies must be S.
M.
A.
R.
T.
This acronym stands for specific, measurable, aggressive, relevant and time-focused.
Consider several issues you confront as you begin to envision yourself being free from crime--a way of thinking that justifies harming others to benefit yourself.
1.
Where will I live and why will I live there? 2.
Where will I work and what type of jobs will I search for? 3.
When applying for employment, how will I position my past, particularly my records of crime and prison? 4.
When a potential employer turns me down, primarily because I am a convicted criminal, recently released from prison, how will I motivate myself to move on to the next application, true to my policies? You must think about those issues now! You see, your vision for being free, for making the arduous trek from conviction to contribution, will not come into focus just by your declaring that you don't want to return to prison.
I went to prison for the first time in December 1959, and in May 1962, when I was released for the first time, I declared I would not return.
Despite the declaration, no matter how sincere, I returned to prison in August 1963 and was released on parole in December 1965, once again declaring not to return.
Yet in July 1966, there I was back again.
Then finally, on Dec.
9, 1968, prison officials released me again for what turned out to be the final time.
Now 40 years later, let's consider what I did differently.
First of all, about five months before my release date, I stopped dealing with prison as if it's a normal environment.
I played no games.
I traded no stories about past criminal exploits.
Rather, I focused on thinking through and writing a long term plan for my life.
At the time, I did not know how important it was to establish concrete personal policies.
Therefore, as you plan for release, you have an edge because you can begin with establishing these personal policies.
As I said, make your policies specific.
For example: "From the moment I am released from prison, I will consider myself employed.
My job is to find a job.
Therefore, I will treat my job search like a full time job, planning and working this strategy daily because I will never again give myself access to crime.
" That's a policy statement! Your policies must be measurable.
Consider this example.
"I will acquire my second job after prison within 60 days of my release.
" Policies must be aggressive.
Consider.
"I will target the following industries, and the following companies in those industries, and I will make cold calls on the following companies.
I will make and keep at least 10 appointments daily, Monday through Saturday until I achieve my second job.
Your policies must be relevant.
For example: "I know that my crime and prison records are publicly accessible; therefore, I will reveal such pertinent information as soon as possible in my conversation with potential employers and will ask them point blank if they can believe that I am changing from criminal to contributor.
I believe you see the point about the personal policies you must establish before prison officials release you to the awesome challenges of making it from conviction to contribution.
You must also develop a plan to make that arduous trek successfully, no matter how long it takes.
According to the dictionary, a plan is a method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective.
Therefore, your personal policies, plus your plan, determine your performance.
In other words, when it comes to getting out, staying out and succeeding over time, proper planning produces profitable performance.
Operationally, a plan is a seven-component system.
The components include a vision statement, a mission statement, a statement of philosophy, a set of objectives, relevant strategies for each objective, a communication strategy and a timeline.
Remember, you vision must be more than simply a wish, or even a dream for something to happen.
It must be an assertive, positive outcome statement, or, in other words, what your life will look like at some point in the future.
For example, in my initial vision statement, written during the late summer, 1968, I declared: "In January 1980, I am a successful professional writer, working for one of North Carolina's largest newspapers.
January 1980 would be the beginning of the 12th year out of prison.
I knew that I wanted to be a professional writer.
I knew that working for a daily newspaper was one of the best ways to learn to consistently produce quality articles.
The plan worked.
During the Spring, 1969, I began writing for The Carolina Times, a Durham (NC)-based weekly newspaper.
Then in rapid succession, I worked for two other weeklies in Greensboro and Raleigh.
In June 1970, I landed my initial daily newspaper reporter's position with the Wilmington (NC) Star-News.
In August 1975, Walker Lundy, managing editor, hired me as a staff writer with The Charlotte Observer, North Carolina's largest and most widely respected daily newspaper.
Planning works! Your plan must include a mission statement, or a brief description of your fundamental purpose.
Your mission statement must answer the question: "what is my purpose?" I will discuss the fine points of a personal mission in the next article in this series.
Next, your plan must include a philosophy, aka an understanding of successful values and lifestyles.
In 1968, I wrote: "I believe I can learn how to stop thinking and behaving like a criminal and learn how to think and behave like a successful, contributing citizen.
This philosophical statement reveals one of the most critical points in this 12-article series.
To become transformed, I had to believe two seemingly opposing concepts.
I had to believe that I could unlearn erroneous thinking, aka criminal thinking.
I had to also believe that I could learn contributory thinking.
This point reveals also why so many programs and agencies fail in their efforts to help convicted individuals become successful following their release from prison.
Those who design these anti-recidivism programs begin with the premise that a person needs only new knowledge, e.
g.
a high school education, a college education, a marketable skill or trade, to change.
While those accomplishments are certainly important, successful personal transformation does not begin there.
To change, a person must initially unlearn error before he or she can successfully acclimate and live according to truth.
So in my statement of philosophy, I had to believe that I could unlearn criminal thinking so that I could learn contributory thinking.
The Apostle Paul analyzes this very challenge in chapter seven of his epistle to the servants of God at Rome.
Paul wrote: "I really don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it.
Instead I do the very thing I hate.
I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good.
But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.
I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned.
No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right.
I want to, but I can't.
When I want to do good, I don't.
And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway .
.
.
O what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?" (Rom.
7:15-24, New Living Translation).
In the King James Version, the last part of this quote from Paul reads: "Who shall save me from this body of death?" In this metaphor, Paul had in mind a particularly cruel form of Roman punishment.
The would lash a dead body to the back of someone convicted of certain heinous crimes in such a way that the person burdened with this dead body could not release himself.
Since the living person could not give life to the dead body, the dead body began to transfer a slow, painful rottening death to the living person.
Sinful thinking, aka criminal thinking works the same way.
In other words, when judicial officials send a drug dealer to prison, and prison officials teach the criminal to lay bricks, they do not necessarily release a brick mason.
Rather, they release a drug dealer who knows how to lay brick.
In other words, to become transformed, a person must renounce and jettison old thinking.
Then the person must embrace and activate new thinking.
Now your plan must include a set of specific objectives.
I refer to them as 'steps to the mission.
" Objectives refer to daily activities developed from your new thinking, based in your personal policies that determine all of your decisions and actions.
You are now more than halfway along the process of developing a quality plan.
You have a vision statement, a mission statement, a statement of philosophy, and a specific set of objectives.
So, now can you see the vision? Can you see yourself becoming transformed from a convicted criminal to a contributing citizen? Yes, it's an arduous process, but believe me, all the work is worth it.
See you at the top!
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