The Dynamics of Humanism in
the Confinement Setting

A New Revolution in Corrections

NE founder, Kenn Neyland, brings us a bold, new, controversial youth corrections program called Project Reclaim, an alternative-to-prisons program that vies to become a new socializing institution as well as a hard-line system by-pass. It is a complete, eclectic, integrated program that restores our faith in the rehabilitation model in corrections.

Kenn Neyland bases his Project Reclaim program on the following references: 1) 17-years experience in four big house prisons, which amounts to participant-observer research; 2) a 3-year tenure in prisoner-advocate Lucy Batchelor's Human Relations Program at Florida State Prison teaching maximum-security prisoners; 3) the humanist principles of Lucy Batchelor, whose selfless dedication and experience spans a fifty-year period; and 4) graduate studies in criminology at the University of Kansas.

In his book, Project Reclaim, Kenn Neyland provides a brief history of the hard-line approach to corrections and shows how the spurious "nothing works" claim made by certain penologists in the 1970's and '80s is today responsible for our failed penal system. "They have set us back a hundred years," Neyland says, "with their old-world philosophy of stoning the prostitute, the scarlet letter and the "eye-for-an eye." What we need is a new consciousness revolution whereby we feature in the forefront of a new human rights movement the humane treatment of our felon-Americans.

The pendulum has reached its apex on the hard-line, punishment-warehouse side of corrections. What goes up must come down. We are now ready for a viable new approach to the rehabilitation model, one that does what corrections is designed to do, to both correct and prevent.

The best way to prevent crime is to prevent criminals.

In his book, Project Reclaim, Neyland tells us that there are five reasons why rehabilitative efforts have failed in the past:

1) Not enough focus on sociological causes for deviance (Neyland discusses these in his deviance model);

2) We don't have a re-socialization institution able to pick up those who fall through the cracks of the conventional socialization experience;

3) The hard-line approach is diametrically opposed to rehabilitative goals, because: a) even when rehabilitative programs are implemented in hard-line prisons, the environment is not conducive to the learning experience and thus little if any progress is made toward the complete turnaround of the student; we cannot warehouse people in a negative environment of "kill or be killed" and expect them to be better people when they get out; b) we cannot expect people to change unless provided with the opportunity and the tools of change (In his book, Neyland discusses at length what he means by "opportunity and the tools" as well as the his concept of the "complete" program);

4) We have never had a program wholly devoted to the fulfillment of the higher basic needs of troubled youth, and,

5) Corrections is the way it is, for the same reason the world is the way it is: a mundane, separatist approach to life, which espouses the old-world consciousness of the eye-for-an-eye, human relations outside the Sphere of Humanism, for all the reasons we have stated above in our mission statement.

Corrections is not the problem, it is the symptom of a problem, thus, corrections seen as a problem, can never be solved. In other words, prison reform, which is like pouring a bucket of water on a four-alarm fire, must be seen as a waste of time and energy. We must redirect these resources into a new consciousness revolution, a complete transformation from the hard-line to the soft-line approach, that is change our orientation about our felon-Americans, that they are not savage beasts and thus do not deserve to be warehoused in steel cages; they are talented human beings with great potential and much to offer the world. Our thinking in corrections must take a 180-degree turn from the philosophy of billy-club corrections to a high-priority programs-oriented approach geared toward higher basic needs fulfillment of prisoners.

The reason we must abandon the hard-line approach is because it is a bureaucratic system that is firmly entrenched within it's old world fallacies and will not change. This system is run by people who have a mindless approach to their jobs, like robots they go to work and do not question a system that is inhumane. They simply check their consciences at the gate on the way in. There is no understanding of the possibility of rehabilitation because of the belief that people who break the law will never change; they are incorrigible.

If corrections is to do what it was designed to do, correct and prevent, we must see the confinement setting as a crucial crossroad experience in the lives of our felon-Americans. It is, at this juncture that the Program must provide both the opportunity and the tools of change, a veritable smorgasbord of social tools. When the student is ready the teacher must come. With these tools, the student is able to do what he wants to do anyway, make his turnaround.

Kenn Neyland refutes the hard-liners claim that "nothing works" by providing us with a new, progressive, educational model based on proven results with some our toughest felon-Americans. Project Reclaim is a complete, eclectic, integrated program that pivots off the crucial mentor imperative. At the mentor's disposal are other integral program elements such as the contract agreement, a personalized, self-paced learning curriculum, a new concept of peer influence tied to the principle of autonomy. A program designed the help the student become more responsible so that he might one day return to society and live a meaningful and productive life, to perhaps get married and raise a family and to become a real asset to his community.

This dynamic new Program is based upon the following principles espoused by prisoner-advocate Lucy Batchelor:

1) People go to prison because of things they don't know.
2) No one is incorrigible.
3) Prisoners should be allowed to learn what they want to learn in prison and be allowed to work together in the learning process.
From these principles and the results we achieved in the Human Relations Programs at Florida State Prison we can conclude that:
4) All felons desire change and will change if given both the opportunity and the tools of change.

The focal point of Project Reclaim is the two-way Reclaim process. This is the essence of Humanism, the Spirit of Oneness at work in the world, the philosophy that we are all One and pool our energies and work together toward world unity. It is a philosophy that brings individuals and groups together, resolving conflict, dispelling controversy. The point is not the issue but the relationship; people are more important than issues, ideas and things.

Neyland wants us to think of Project Reclaim first and foremost as a large promoter of the New Humanism in which people care about people: People are important. As is stated in his New Humanism philosophy: "There is only one thing expected of us in life and that is to be a real person and the only way we can do this is to care about people. We can believe what we want to believe but the only thing we have in for sure in this world is each other."

This is the way to the goal of all Mankind, world unity. In opposition to this goal is the hard-line philosophy of differences and controversy so characteristic of life in the Sphere of Separatism, a negative Dark-Ages consciousness in direct violation of the Universal Law of Oneness. You cannot warehouse, exploit and abuse people and expect such a comment on what it means to be human to move Mankind forward.

Thus the two-way Reclaim process is the focal point within the philosophy of Project Reclaim: bringing groups together, in this case bringing our felon-Americans together with their society; that is, society in the person of Project Reclaim reaching into our felon-Americans, showing that we understand them to be first of all human beings whose lives are sacred and inviolable.

Second, they are a valuable resource in our society largely going to waste. Finally, it is this positive humanistic exchange of energy that helps us heal the wounds and close the breech between them and us, which is simply a form of speech because we are all One. It is society taking responsibility for its mistakes, working within the system-blame approach; it is society fulfilling its role as the social parent by tending to the basic needs of its troubled youth (taking responsibility for their falling through the cracks of the conventional socialization experience).

Within his Project Reclaim philosophy, Neyland states his most controversial premise: The best way to deal with the hard-line prison system that refuses to change is to phase it out by stopping the flow of our young people into these human warehouses where a bad problem becomes ten-times worse, as Neyland demonstrates from his own experience, sending these kids instead to the Project Reclaim alternative where failure is not an option and where kids can work together on their redemptive Journeys.

Project Reclaim's primary goal is to help our troubled youth to achieve his own personal life goals and to become more responsible. It is designed to help the deviant do what he wants to do anyway, live a meaningful and productive life in open society.

To help implement these ideas, Kenn Neyland has on the drawing board an elaborate pilot facility, New Horizons Junior College, where our troubled youth are able to take advantage of a unique re-education curriculum and thus remove the failure label (the low GPA) laid on them by an educational system more committed to student management than student education, a program designed to further study the dynamics of humanism in the confinement setting. It is a program that when taken nationwide becomes a new socializing institution, a way to by-pass the hard-line system. The prospective home of Project Reclaim and NHJC is San Diego, CA.