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and teaching them habits that will be less maladaptive than what they were doing before they came to prison. There will be only 32 beds per building, on three floors. There would be as many of these buildings as needed scattered around the grounds. Each building will have its own kitchen and dining facility that will be operated by the individuals living in the building, to promote a sense of ownership.

There would be separate buildings as well. There will be a gym and exercise facility; there will be two buildings with class rooms, and a vocational training building. There will also be a separate counseling facility where the individuals will receive one-on-one counseling as well as attending group meetings.

The grounds will be manicured and tended; the individuals incarcerated there would be doing the work around the facility, maintaining the grounds and helping with the maintenance of the buildings. The grounds will be full of wide paved paths and interesting landscape, all aimed at providing as normal a life as possible.

The individuals confined in the facilities will have their days filled and regimented so that there would be very little of the day that was not engineered to help the people learn new skills, new habits and make the shift toward and more adaptive way of life. They would get up in the morning, straighten up their room for inspection, go either to physical training, or to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. After showers and breakfast there would be classes either about vocations, general education, addictions, or there would be counseling. The individuals will rotate through these different classes, stopping for lunch, and then there would be dinner. After dinner is more physical training, with a few hours of recreation time, which will be closely monitored so that each individual feels safe.

Granted, this would be expensive, and staff intensive. But this is the way to help people change themselves, and change the way they look at life. It would help them change the way they go about conducting their lives. It would help them change the habits they developed growing up. It would give them a new life expectancy. It would help them correct the errors or correct for the errors that had led them to whatever decisions made it so they were incarcerated.

Beyond this the system needs to also ease these people back into society. They need to be assisted in gaining employment, regaining housing, getting in with doctors and counselors. They need to be helped applying the skills and strategies they learned of the 15 years or whatever time they spent on the inside.

People that have the issues that led them to drugs can learn to cope; they can change their ways and their habits, and the way they process information to make the right decisions. If the system we have in place was reformed to accommodate their needs we could produce many more up right citizens' than we do now.

Learn more about this author, David Frazee.
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