Correctional Education Association

Mending Muddled MindsAuthor(s): Charlotte RamseySource: Journal of Correctional Education, Vol. 37, No. 1 (March, 1986), pp. 4-6Published by: Correctional Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23291891 .

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JOURNAL OF CORRECTIONAL EDUCATION VOLUME 37, ISSUE 1, MARCH, 1986

Mending Muddled Minds Charlotte Ramsey

Abstract

Counseling techniques, used by Mrs. Ramsey at

the Aiken Youth Corrections Center, are discussed and

some examples cited. In order for an offender to change direction,

changes in thinking must take place; and the conclu

sion is drawn that without a change in mind-sets, a

change in life direction is unlikely to occur.

Danny, a 20-year-old black youth with a long record, stormed into my office on a cold January afternoon. "I'm

going to kill Mrs. Peterson!" he yelled. "As soon as she

turns her back on me," he continued, "I'm going to get her."

"Sit down, Danny," I said, "and tell me what happened." "She wrote me up for talking in class. All I did was ask

Johnny if the mail had come in. I've already had four write

ups; and if she gives me another one, I'll have to go before

the Adjustment Committee!" The scowl almost turned to

tears. "Fm going to kill her!" he reiterated.

"How do you usually handle people who hurt you?" I

asked. "There's only one to handle them." (His fist was

clinched.) "You hit them!" "Who taught you that?" I asked.

"My daddy told me that when I was small. He said,

'Danny, if anybody hurts you, hit them!' "

"Would you believe there are some other ways to

handle people who hurt you?" I said. "Can you think of

any other way to handle this situation with Mrs. Peterson?"

By this time, the scowl was gone from his face. He

thought for several minutes. "I could just not say anything else to her for the rest of the time I'm here."

"Would that work?" I asked.

"Probably not..." he said in a pondering voice. "I know

how I could get back" his face lit up. "I could refuse to do

anything else she asks me to do."

"Would that be to your advantage?" I asked.

"Well, no, she could write me up then for refusing an

order." "Can you think of any other way to handle it?" I

insisted.

"No." "Do you know what I would do?" I asked. He was

listening intently. "I would apologize to Mrs. Peterson, even if I thought I

didn't do anything wrong. I would ask her is she would

allow me to clean her room in place of the write-up."

He hesitated. "I'll try it!" he said. In about ten minutes, Danny burst into my office. "It

worked, Mrs. Ramsey! It worked!" he exclaimed. "What happened?" I asked again. "She's going to let me clean her book shelves and

sweep the floor for a week instead of turning in the write

up...Do you know what?" he continued. "I really like Mrs.

Peterson. She's a great teacher!" This mini-case study is quoted here almost word for

word the way it happened. Notice Danny's change of

attitude and change of direction. Also notice that the

counselor did not get excited or condemn him for his

previous attitude. She attempted to lead him to a new

direction.

Alex, who had been depressed since his incarceration, walked sadly into my office one morning. "I want you to

help me write a letter," he requested. "I'm going to commit

suicide." Alex had been in my office a number of times to talk

about his problems at home and had attempted suicide

before. I realized that he was going to have to be shocked

into reality in order to begin taking concrete steps toward a

solution to his problems. "Maybe that is the best way to

solve your problems," I said, shuttering to think what might

happen if my technique didn't work. He looked at me with

a puzzled expression. "Before you do it though, you've got to take care of a

few things you're leaving behind," I reminded him. "You've

got to make some provision for your wife and daughter, so

let's put something in the letter about that. And what about

your grandparents who visited you last weekend? How will

it affect them to know you're dead?"

"They'll understand," he said sadly. "Maybe," I said, "or maybe your grandfather might

have a heart attack when he hears about it. Then what

would your grandmother do?" He thought for a long time. "Let's just say you weren't going to commit suicide," I

offered. "Can you think of anything else you could do to

help solve your problems?" "I could get my GED." "That's right," I encouraged. "Then you could get a

better job to take care of your family." We talked for another fifteen minutes about his goals

for the future. When the bell rang and Alex rose to leave, I

said, "What about your suicide letter, Alex? Do you want to

come back later and write it?"

"Aw, Mrs. Ramsey," he said, "you know I can't kill

myself...I've got too much to do!" (NOTE: Alex has now

been released and is attending high school to qualify for

graduation with ambitions to become a private detective.) These two examples have been cited to try to demon

strate the counseling techniques that I try to use in dealing with young adult offenders at the Aiken Youth Correction

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VOLUME 37, ISSUE 1, MARCH, 1986

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JOURNAL OF CORRECTIONAL EDUCATION

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Center. My techniques don't always work, and I would be the first to admit that the same techniques don't work with all types of people. There are no "cook book" answers;

people are too complicated for that. However, there are some basic ingredients that should be included in dealing with offenders.

1. Take a positive attitude toward offenders.

Only on a few occasions have I told an inmate that he was

wrong to do what he did. Adults don't like to be told they're wrong. However, if the conversation can be directed so that the inmate himself says he is wrong, that's acceptable.

A few of the negative attitudes that can hinder the

helping profession in a prison setting are: "That's the kind of behavior you can expect from someone like him." "He got what he deserved." "He'll be back in here

again...I'm just wasting my time." "He's just a loser...That's all."

Until a counselor eliminates these types of condem

natory attitudes, he cannot do his best. 2. Try to let the inmate decide what the alternative

solutions are to his problem. That's what I tried to do with

Danny, but notice that I also tried to give him direction when he couldn't come up with any of his own. Sometimes a nudge from a counselor like, "Have you ever considered what would happen if you

"

can stimulate an inmate to think for himself. For example, if he decides to get his GED, you may have to help him schedule a completion date.

3. Use a calm, sensible voice and approach. No one wants to be yelled at. Confrontation must be done in a gentle, non-judgmental way, and we must avoid words that are cutting and destructive. Also, I recommend

avoiding the use of "inmate language" because I think it breeds disrespect. Your words in dealing with offenders should be constructive and edifying (building).

4.Be empathetic. Empathy comes from a German word "ein fiilung," meaning "to feel with or into" (Collins, 1976). In other words, ask yourself," If I were this inmate -

if I were here behind bars - how would I feel?" This was

brought out vividly to me some weeks ago as I was dealing with a 19-year-old offender who had just gotten the

message that his best friend had been killed in an accident. I had already spent an hour with him and was about to

suggest that it was time for him to go to work. Suddenly, however, he looked at me, red-eyed, and cried, "What do

they expect me to do- go on as if nothing ever happened... business as usual?"

The question jolted me because I had been too busy to think about feelings. "No," I said, "I'll call the cafeteria

and tell them you can't come today." Then for the rest of

the afternoon, he called his parents, his friend's parents, and arranged for flowers to be sent - as he worked through his grief. In the past, this teenager had handled problems

by "drinking enough alcohol to forget." But because

someone cared, he dealt with this problem in a reasonable

way.

Warmth and genuineness are important, and the counselor should emanate the feeling that "I care about

your problems and your well-being." If you don't really feel

this, inmates will know that you are fake. It has been said that one clinically trained person can do more than 10

Gatling guns. Your best weapons in dealing with inmates are love, concern, and empathy.

5. Guide the inmate to own responsibility for his actions and not blame family, friends, or drugs. This is difficult for me in dealing with inmates because I realize that in many cases, parents probably are responsible at least for the direction of the inmate's life. When a mother

brings in a variety of boyfriends who try to molest her 13

year-old daughter, it is not unusual for the daughterto end

up in prostitution. When both parents are alcoholics and allow corruption in the home, it is not unusual for the son to be incarcerated for DWI. However, even though I allow the inmate to talk about his background, I steer him back to his own responsibility as soon as possible in order for him hopefully to see that he is not a paper doll or a puppet.

6. Realize that rehabilitation takes time. One or two sessions with an inmate probably will not change his life. It takes time and effort to accomplish a goal.

7. Be careful that your life as a counselor can serve as a model for the inmates. Several weeks ago an

intelligent young man, whose goal was to be a doctor, was admitted to our institution. He would have been a senior in

high school, and efforts had begun to try to secure an early release for him. On the day before his early release, he

was found with four marijuana joints. I was very angry with

him, and my first reaction was to ignore him from then on.

However, counselors must remain calm in the face of whatever happens. Change of events in the life of an inmate can come at any time. Exits and re-entries must be

handled calmly no matter what the inmate said to you when he stormed out of your office.

If a counselor meets the inmate's anger with anger and his deception with deception, he is acting like the inmate and will get nowhere. Moreover, when the coun

selor encounters administrative obstacles with the prison staff, he should show the same patience that he suggests for the inmate. An inmate will interpret impatience as

anger and then see the counselor as being no different from himself. We need to take stock of our personal and

professional lives, striving for personal growth and improving the quality of our profession.

Conclusions

Dr. Stanton Samenow, co-author of The Criminal

Personality (1977) feels that prison is not a deterrent for the average criminal and that external punishment does

not change a man. According to Samenow, a criminal can

change only by drastically altering his thinking patterns

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VOLUME 37, ISSUE 1, MARCH, 1986 JOURNAL OF CORRECTIONAL EDUCATION

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and, ultimately, his entire image. The result of any effective counseling should be a

positive change in a person's life. With no meaningful change, there is no benefit. That change must come from the inside out.

Our task as counselors is to equip the inmate with inner strengths that will enable him to deal with

problems at the prison and at home. Dr. Samenow (1977) gives a full discussion of what

must happen in an offender's life in order for change to occur. In this paper, however, a few of the change areas which I personally use in dealing with adult offenders are listed.

1. Accomplish the highest educational level pos sible. This improves self-respect and brings them into contact with a different type of environment and ultimately can change thinking, objectives, and priorities. In a survey that I conducted some years ago at the Women's Correction

Center in Columbia, South Carolina, I discovered that 75% of parents of these inmates were high school drop outs and not one parent (out of 40 interviewed) had attended college. Literature supports the position that interaction with better-educated peers brings change. As one inmate said, "When I return to jail after being in school all day, I realize what a waste of time jail is." (Gluckstern, 1974).

2. Associate with proper role models. Professor

Meussling (1984) tells how the inmates in his college class

began to change. They shaved, washed their hair, and

began to dress like college students; moreover, they developed a helpful, friendly attitude toward each other.

3. Learn to predict your behavior in certain situa

tions. This change is recommended especially for those who have uncontrolled anger and fighting. For example, if

happens, this is what I'm going to say (or do).

4. Develop positive self concepts and goals to

replace negative ones. Recently, a 19-year-old student in

my office made the comment, "My life is pretty well shot

anyway." Compare this to an inmate with the attitude, "I've made mistakes, but today is a new day."

Positivism must be nurtured and fed if it is to continue. 5. Change your "mind sets". The latter four changes

could not be effected without this one. Samenow (1977) discovered that if basic character structure was not dealt

with, even when criminal operations were not intended, the defects in character produce dilemmas that make for crime. A change in behavior has to be accompanied by a change of mind. What occupies most of the inmate's

thinking? This is the question. If all they do in their spare time is read dirty books, this should change. If their entire motivation in life is the pursuit of pleasure (drugs, sex, etc.), their thinking in this area must change. And when they remove these unworthy priorities, they must be replaced

by more useful and worthwhile priorities.

This is not an easy task - changing mind sets - but

through group therapy, values clarification sessions, and

personal counseling, we must try to accomplish it. It is a mammoth task for a 25-year-old man or woman

to learn to appreciate values and morals that he has never

been taught. But this is the task that we as counselors, case

workers, and correctional leaders have been assigned. It is

depressing and discouraging at times. But the few suc cesses that we enjoy far outweigh the failures because we're dealing with human lives - and to save one life or to cause one unproductive, trouble-causing person to change direction is worth all our efforts.

References

Entine, Alan D. (1977). Counseling Adults. Monterey, California: Brooks Cole Publishing Co.

Gluckstern & Dye, L.L., ed. (1974). "Counselors in Edu

cation." Personnel & Guidance Journal, 53: 128-68.

Meussling, Venne (1984). "The Emotional Climate of the

Interpersonal Classroom in a Maximum Security Prison." Journal of Correctional Education, 35: 115-16.

Samenow, Stanton E. (August 1984). "Society Doesn't Cause Crime." People Magazine, 23-25.

Yochelson, Samuel and Samenow, Stanton E. (1977). The Criminal Personality, Vols. I & II, New York: Jason Aronson.

Biographical Sketch

Charlotte Ramsey has a Master's in Counseling from the University of South Carolina and a

Master's in Religious Education. A former high school teacher and teacher at the South Carolina

Department of Corrections, she is now a Counselor

at the Aiken Youth Corrections Center in Aiken, South Carolina.

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