Prison - A Crime College Or Change Center Part 2

I spent four more years in crime and prison after my epiphany experience with Babe Dillard. During those four years, I transformed prison, for me, from a crime college to a change center.

I remember setting around various cellblocks, over the years, swapping crime stories with other criminals, and thinking, um, I could make that work for me. I remember dreaming about the "big score," every criminal's ultimate fantasy. You get away with hundreds of thousands of dollars and chill out on some tropical island with beautiful women and a life of luxury.

After my experience with Dillard, the nightmare of that potential future--wasting 40 years in prison haunted me relentlessly. Looking back now I see clearly the huge and deadly bullet I dodged. If I had not changed, I would be 65 years old in October 2007, and would have spent the last 39 years in prison, probably as battered and broken by now as Babe Dillard was then. I would be hobbling down some prison trying vainly to convince some ego-driven, blind and dumb criminal not to make my mistake.

Fortunately, I took this old criminal's advice and began learning how to change.

Please note, the system didn't change! Prison remains as brutal and inhumane as it has always been. Society, by and large, has not changed! Some people who have been victimized by crime are just as opposed to the idea of changed criminals as they have always been. Others, who try to help, remain as inept as they have always been. The issue remains: criminals must change.

In the remainder of this article, I am going to write directly to criminals who want to change, but because of the rules in prison, most of them will never see this article unless you help. Okay, FLOC (Families and Loved Ones of Criminals), here is your chance to launch your active role in helping your loved one change. You are reading this. I challenge you to not just agree or disagree with me. If you do not personally have a relative or loved one in crime or incarcerated, then give this article to someone you know who does. You won't have to look far.

During my final four years in crime and prison, including a fruitless parole stint, I learned seven valuable lessons about this process of change. They are as follows:

Change from crime begins inside. This means two things. First, it means that incarcerated criminals must begin changing while incarcerated. Second, it means that personal change begins inside the person. For additional details, please read my article "Tired of Prison? Break the crime habit!"

Change from crime manifests itself outside. This also means two things. First, it means that you must not only "see" yourself changing, others must "see" the change, too. Your fellow inmates, for example, must see the difference in you. Your new thinking, beliefs, expectations and attitudes must be so shocking and challenging that they talk about your changes. Yes, many of them will likely disbelieve, even oppose your changes. For additional information about this lesson, please see my article The 14 Laws of Success. This lesson also means that when you are released, the changes that occurred inside of you will also be reflected in your life on the outside. Both your talk and your walk must demonstrate difference.

When changes are wrought in you and manifest themselves outside you have become a change activist. In fact, you must become a change activist while incarcerated.

Change activists must have the courage and perseverance to withstand opposition to change inside so they can conquer more severe opposition after release. If you shudder and recoil from the opposition to change you experience in prison, you will never survive the intense opposition you confront after release. Despite, our protestations to the contrary, most law abiding citizens do not believe that criminals can and will change. How do I know? We, as a society, continue paying huge sums to punish criminals, at least we believe we are punishing them, rather than insisting that criminals change. As a society, we generally do not support strategies designed to help criminals change.

Change from crime requires a team. Face facts! If you have been a criminal since you were______years-old [put your age in the blank], you know nothing about changing from being a criminal to becoming a community contributor. Chances are you do not know anyone who made that transition. The rule, though, is simple. If I want to become a millionaire, I would not take a college economics course from a professor earning $75,000. I would find all the instructional information I could from millionaires and learn to do what they do. In 2002, Mike Litman and Jason Oman published a neat little book entitled Conversations with Millionaires. This book is a collection of radio conversations with millionaires such as Jim Rohn, Mark Victor Hansen, Wally 'Famous' Amos, Jack Canfield, Robert Allen, Sharon Lechter, Michael Gerber and Jim McCann, among others. I know, you've never heard of these people, but you know Ray Rae, Skeeter, Boom Boom and Rap Man. They all have one thing in common, they are broke and cannot help you. So, to be a millionaire, learn from millionaires. To become a change activist, you must learn from change activists. Therefore, you need a team of change activists. Begin at home with the people close to you. Challenge them to help you make the arduous trek from crime to contribution. This group of mentors become your Change Advocates.

Change advocates must also be change activists in their personal lives. No one can teach you what they do not know. They cannot help you go where they've never been. Therefore, as you speak with potential team members, stress the fact that you need people who are either already change activists, or who are willing, for your sake, to become change activists personally.

The change team must build their relationship on the following four fundamental principles: commitment, cooperation, communication and contribution. Everyone on the team must be committed to the proposition that this specific criminal can become a community contributor. Everyone on the team must learn to cooperate in the change process, rather than compete with it. Everyone on the team must vow to communicate honestly and openly with each other and everyone else. Everyone on the team must contribute to the process. These constitute core principles of the change process.

Here's the final lesson I learned during those four years, and it might well be the most important: change constitutes life's only constant and all conflict develops from the clash of two or more mindsets that refuse to change.

As far as I know, Babe Dillard died in a North Carolina prison, a battered and broken man who will never know how much he accomplished on that day in 1964 when he advised me to stop being a fool and to not make his mistake. As far as I am concerned, Dillard balanced the books that day. Therefore, in honor of his contribution to me, I did something that many of my fellow inmates thought to be silly. As I sat on my bunk in a now defunct prison unit in Creswell, North Carolina on Dec. 9, 1968, I pronounced sentence upon myself. "Milton C. Jordan," I said aloud, "I hereby sentence you to life in freedom. You must serve this sentence without any possibility of parole."

I'm still serving that sentence. It's been a great 39 years, and the best is yet to come.

See you at success!

I have spent almost 40 years mastering the principles of how to stay out of crime and prison. I am now an expert and I want to share this expertise with others. For more information, please visit [http://www.miltoncjordansr.com/]

Campus Crime Statistics - College Administrators Prefer You Didn't Know Them

It's a bit curious that during ten informational college sessions my wife and I attended between 2003 and 2007, not once was the issue of campus crime statistics discussed. Yet the "Jeanne Clery Campus Security Crime Act" requires US colleges and universities to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses.

The "Clery Act" is named in memory of Jeanne Clery, a nineteen-year-old Lehigh University freshman who was raped and murdered while asleep in her residence hall room on April 5, 1986. Jeanne's parents, Connie and Howard, discovered that Lehigh students hadn't been told about thirty-eight violent crimes on their campus in the three years before the murder. The Clerys joined with other campus crime victims and persuaded Congress to enact this law, which was originally known as the "Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990."

The law was modified in 1992 to require schools to give certain basic rights to victims of campus sexual assault; in 1998 it was changed again to expand reporting requirements. The 1998 amendments also formally named the law in memory of Jeanne Clery.

Additional amendments in 2000 and 2008 added provisions regarding registered sex offender notification and campus emergency response. The 2008 amendments also added a provision to protect crime victims, "whistleblowers", and others from retaliation.

In compliance with the "Clery Act", the US Department of Education now provides The Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool, an on-line program that offers instant customized reports of campus crime and fire data. By logging onto this tool - see below - anyone can view crime statistics specific to one school, or compare data from schools selected by size of enrollment, program, type of institution or state.

The Cutting Tool collects data from the Office of Postsecondary Education Campus Safety and Security Statistics database where crime statistics and fire statistics are submitted annually by all universities that receive Title IV funding - those that participate in federal student aid programs.

Additionally, as part of the "Clery Act", the US Department of Education requires that all universities that receive Title IV funding also comply with all regulations outlined in the Handbook for Campus Crime Report - a guide that walks universities through the "Clery Act" requirements. There is also an on-line companion to the guide called the Campus Crime Reporting Training Video - http://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/campus.html#training - I recommend that every parent of an incoming freshman watch it. It discusses how universities must establish security policy, record and disclose reported crime both on campus and off, and even discloses an invisible 'one mile rule' which is an extension of the college campus for off campus crime reporting.

I became concerned about campus security when taking my own daughter to a university in Wooster, Massachusetts to which she had been accepted. It was a small private school with an excellent academic reputation; however, a police precinct on the edge of campus worried me. That Wooster was a distressed town with a campus in the middle of the city did not help matters.

I approached one of the students the day we were visiting and asked about the school's safety. He told me that after 4 p.m. my daughter should find someone to walk her to classes. Obviously, this was a major concern and one of the factors that dissuaded my daughter from accepting admission.

Recently I used the online tool - http://ope.ed.gov/security/ - and discovered that the school had a light amount of crime in 2007 and 2008, the first two years my daughter would have attended - most crimes were burglaries. Moreover, the statistics the "Clery Act" collects are all reported crimes, not just those that lead to convictions; it is possible that some on the list were unsubstantiated or dismissed. But there is a lesson to be learned here. Do not let a depressed area around your university, prejudice your decision as it did mine.

On the other hand, knowing the statistics never hurts.

Barry Simmons is a freelance financial aid expert who sells his best selling book 'How To Send Your Child To College For Free Or Close To It' on his website (link: http://www.collegeisfree.com ). His site also offers quite a bit of free college resource material including his humorous blog following the first year and a half of his son's experience at college.

Report Cards on College Campus Crime

In 1986, Howard and Connie Cleary's daughter, Jeanne, a student at Lehigh University, was murdered on campus. In addition to founding the non-profit Security on Campus, Inc. in 1987, they lobbied for a new federal law that would require colleges and universities to disclose both ongoing and annual reports on campus crime and security policy.

Originally enacted by the Congress in 1990 as the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, the law was codified as part of the Higher Education Act of 1965 and made applicable to all postsecondary institutions participating in federal student aid programs. It was renamed the Clery Act - specifically, the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act - after a round of amendments were made to the Act in 1998.

Annual report cards

The Clery Act mandates that schools publish annual reports by October 1st detailing the previous three years of campus crime statistics. Also required are explanations of existing sexual assault policies, statements attesting to a basic level of victims' rights, a description of the campus law enforcement authority and contact information for students to report crimes.

When compiled and published each year, each school is to distribute the report immediately to all current students and staff, and notify applicants and prospective employees that it is available. Institutions may employ any of various means of notification, including e-mail and website postings, as long as each intended recipient is given the precise URL (Uniform Resource Locator, or web address) for the report. School officials must also make printed, paper copies available.

The report is also submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, which will then aggregate the findings of over 6,000 schools. The Clery Act crime statistics are the gold standard for American college campus crime data, even eclipsing the value of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program, which collects data from a mere 400-some schools. A third trusted source of this data comes from The Chronicle of Higher Education, but the Clery Act reports are by far the best information available on crime at postsecondary institutions.

Crime statistic and categories

The definition of "campus" is important to understanding the data. Schools keep (and report on) statistics for crimes that occur directly on campus, on some off-campus facilities like fraternities and sororities ("Greek housing"), remote classrooms, in school vehicles (buses, trams) and in certain public areas that border school property. The county sheriff, local police forces, campus police and security personnel all contribute statistics and statements to the Clery Act report, as do other school staff, employees or officials that have "significant responsibility for student and campus activities." Schools are encouraged, but not required, to have confidential reporting procedures. However, once they opt to establish such a system, they are then required to inform the campus community of its existence. As mental health professionals and ministers are exempt from the reporting obligations, a confidential reporting system could capture enough additional crime data to affect a school's objective safety rating.

There are seven reporting categories for campus crime, several of which have additional sub-categories. The categories are outlined in the following manner:

Homicide
Murder and non-negligent manslaughter
Negligent manslaughter
Sex offenses
Forcible offenses including rape
Non-forcible offenses
Robbery
Aggravated assault
Burglary
Vehicular theft
Arson

There is also a lesser category ("incident") that must be reported if there is a disciplinary referral to the campus judicial affairs office, or an arrest by a law enforcement agency. The incidents that require reporting include all types of liquor law violations, all drug law violations and weapons possession. Only the arrest is counted if a student is both arrested and given a school referral.

The Clery Act further requires that the data be mapped out, denoting the geographical areas as being on campus, campus student residences, non-campus buildings or "public property" such as parks, streets and sidewalks. In addition, the report must disclose if any reported crime was a "hate crime" under either state or federal law, or both.

Timeliness and responsibility

Unless a student is a victim, perpetrator or witness, the way most students even become remotely aware of the Clery Act is by the occasional "timely warnings" that schools publicize, as well as the separate, comprehensive crime log they make available for public inspection. The decision to issue a "timely warning" is a subjective one on the part of the school administration, and is normally considered only when a person or act is deemed to pose an imminent and/or ongoing "threat to students and employees." The public log must be available for viewing by any interested party, not just persons affiliated with the particular school. The log must contain records of everything that is reported to campus police or security personnel, and is to be continuously updated in a manner specified by the Act.

Using the data

The crime information is not collected merely for the sake of amassing statistics. There is a very real responsibility on the part of postsecondary institutions to provide a safe and healthy environment for scholastic pursuits. Crime on campus, of all levels and kinds, is antithetical to the very notion of the university, a place of contemplation, problem-solving, creative beauty of every kind and the dynamism we associate with education, discovery and free inquiry.

Schools are dynamic, certainly. Constantly in a state of flux, altered by ongoing arrivals and departures and integrated to varying degrees with the surrounding communities, college campuses can be statistically safe yet still be the site of violent attacks, property crimes and even personal harassment. A victim is rarely comforted by finding out how low the rate is for the crime committed against her. She is, of course, 100% victimized.

And so the Clery Act reports are dutifully, if not routinely, filed at the end of September every year. Some people have made it their lives' work to ensure that this data gets into the hands of concerned parents and families. The non-profit run by the Clery family - SecurityOnCampus.org - makes abstracts, reports and analyses available on a continuous basis, and The Chronicle of Higher Education and the FBI both publish additional campus crime data. A little reading and research are all that stands between you and a clear picture of campus crime in America. If you are thinking of enrolling in college, or know someone who is, now is a good time to start.

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