False Evidence Appearing Real!
Fear is not of me.
GOD has changed my END GAME
to my A GAME.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love. Sound familiar?
When I was in prison, they had the “Scared Straight” program, and it looked like a con job to me at the time; it unnerves me a bit to think people are still using it today. Please watch this YouTube Video before reading my Blog (unless you are already familiar with Scared Straight programming.
Anger is a dubious luxury for normal people. Toby has anger issues. He would make a perfect cop in Floyd County who apparently believe violence and threats of violence is OK. But if Toby plays his cards right, he could be a good cop who changes the system from the inside-out. Scared Straight is abusive in many cases. It's like fighting hatred with hatred, even though everyone knows it's just a tool used to stop youthful offenders from growing into adult offenders. Intervention is certainly needed with most kids. An admirable goal, but this type of fakery is evidence of societal mental illness. Showing them REAL prison stories might be more effective, like when a guard was raped and killed, or when guards allowed inmates to be killed or raped, or how guards have beaten inmates to death. That might help them grow up to be lawyers to build a better society. Truth is stranger than fiction, and they are trying to sugar-coat the truth by not telling them how law enforcement and guards are human and can be corrupt. That would show them what it means to be incarcerated. Putting them in cells, that's useful. How about if we lock cops up and subject them to the lies and abuse they subject others? Does that make sense? Of course not.
Peacemakers, not Police-State Makers
So anyway, yeah, these 'real inmates' with cartoon tattoos are trying to help kids in the same demented way? Probably some really care, but it's likely mixed with a reduction of sentence or early release for Good Behavior. Who in their right minds would condone abusers to live out their fantasies of tormenting smaller and weaker human beings in jail? Having the power and using the power justly takes a real adult to step up, as a real man or woman to step up, and be true Role Models.
"I swear to God..." That officer will throw God's name under the bus of his power-struggle issues. When Sergeant Womack spoke wisdom to the young person, that was admirable. Showing the cellblocks was good. The Sarge talking about coming from a long line of alcoholics opened that kid up. That is effective too, yet it still seems manipulative with the Good Cop/Bad Cop psychodrama.
BREATHE…
…just breathe…
You just don't want to leave the kids with ammunition to think cops are creepy. We need to change that whole mindset. Appeal to the goodness in people, whether they are law enforcement or criminals. Cops and Crooks have PTSD, and until the trauma is healed, nothing changes. Retraumatizing and 'triggering' offenders are not viable tools for change.
Raise your love, raise it high. Don't let the world and its circumstances lead you to hate’s door.
Tearing people down to build them up is an outmoded therapy model for change and was discontinued in treatment settings years ago. Hitting one’s bottom organically works, and intervention works, but it’s different than forcing solutions or imposing harmony.
If YOU are running the machine, I will never take responsibility for my working the machine.
It was a good idea to have kids talk to their folks on the jail visiting room (non-contact) phone. Seeing your loved one on the other side of the glass without being able to touch them shows what it's really like to be oppressed by your fellow humans. Personally, it seems crystal clear that Sergeant Womack is a good man. I know one when I see one, even on video. It's the cops and guards that are respectful, honest, and do the right thing even when it's really hard who are the true Role Models.
I just want to point out that the family units that kids have severely impact their behavior. So many troubled kids have alcoholic or even drug-addicted parents. No constructive love to surround a child can leaves scars, not just wounds. Some kids end up looking for love in gangs. Gangs become their 'family' because they don't have a functional family (or maybe have no family at all, but bounce from home to home and become State Raised, as I did). I served two major incarcerations and several minor incarcerations but now enjoy 30-years of freedom because I 'sobered-up' in a 12-Step organization. The "Fellowship" members became my family. They loved me back to health and loved me until I could love myself.
I'm an Ex-con and have been speaking to DWI offenders for almost all of my sobriety about sober driving. If you love someone, you won't hurt them. If you love yourself, you will not hurt yourself, either. Being an obstacle to love and forgiveness keeps people sick. Love heals. Forgiveness runs deeper than the offense that requires its presence. I've met countless people in recovery who expressed how grateful they are to the officer who pulled them over because they realized they could have killed someone. I strongly suggested they actually go find the officer who arrested them and tell them thanks. We all need that in life sometimes...to be thanked when we work a sometimes-thankless job. My job is to get people to love one another. LOL! A thankless job at times. So instead of giving up, I work tirelessly to help people drive sober, so they don't have to someday figure out how to forgive themselves for killing someone.
Here’s some parting truth: