IDP: The Thirteen Components to Criminal Thinking and Behavior

By Traci Farris

About the Book
It may surprise some to learn that the United States not only incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country in the world, but it is facing intense prison overcrowding and funding issues, putting financial burden on taxpayers by needlessly sending nonviolent felony offenders to jail.
The solution to this growing problem, IDP: The Thirteen Components to Criminal Thinking and Behavior is based on Traci Farris’s Incarceration Diversion Program (IDP), a pilot program that is changing the face of prison reform for the better, saving taxpayers money, and saving lives by offering nonviolent felony offenders a new lease on life.
In this breakdown of how the program works, learn the secrets to creating a functional program that habilitates nonviolent offenders with substance abuse barriers and mental illnesses, avoiding costly, and traumatic, prison stays. With a 100 percent success rate in three years, IDP is a working program whose results see criminality significantly decreased.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Mar 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781639376926

Book preview

IDPcoversheet.eps

The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or actions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2023 by Traci Farris

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, downloaded, distributed, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without permission in writing from the publisher.

Dorrance Publishing Co

585 Alpha Drive

Pittsburgh, PA 15238

Visit our website at www.dorrancebookstore.com

ISBN: 978-1-6393-7294-2

eISBN: 978-1-6393-7692-6

IDPcoversheet.eps

For the American Prison System,

The American People,

My Family,

My Peace.

To John: The one I could not save.

Contents

Introduction 9

Chapter 1: The Same Old 11

Chapter 2: Education and Employment 23

Chapter 3: Substance Addiction 30

Chapter 4: Finances and Budget 39

Chapter 5: Support System, Affiliations, and Leisure 48

Chapter 6: Housing and Family 54

Chapter 7: The Antisocials (Thinking, Behavior, Peers,

and Personality) 62

Chapter 8: Medical and Physical Health 70

Chapter 9: Additives 79

Conclusion 86

Testimonials 94

References 98

Introduction

There has been more research and studies conducted on the topic of criminality and addiction than any other topic.  Millions of dollars have been spent to facilitate prison overcrowding solutions and yet the criminal justice system continues to react the same way to what continues to plague our communities and fill our prison cells. 

When we talk about prison reform, addicts make up a large percentage of the prison population in the United States.  Many have mental health barriers. Multiple studies and statistics  show how many inmates suffer from mental illness. Studies that show inmates that have been convicted of drug or alcohol offenses; and statistics that signify how many inmates have been convicted of these offenses, also having mental health barriers.  There are no statistics of how many inmates have mental health issues that directly lead to criminal behavior.  This is imperative information.  Information that cannot be eliminated in our pursuit of prison reform. 

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) shows that 64 percent of local jail inmates, 56 percent of state prisoners and 45 percent of federal prisoners have symptoms of serious mental illnesses. Mental illnesses that our one-size-fits-all criminal justice system is not equipped to handle.   Individuals with mental illness who do not need to be in prison.  

From a financial standpoint, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how much it costs taxpayers to incarcerate an offender.  There are many variables to this equation.  A close estimate is roughly $123 a day, or somewhere around $ 45,000 a year.  Using this financial model, over $100,000 in legal and incarceration costs could be saved if an alternative to prison was provided for those offenders with substance abuse and mental health barriers.  

Prison should be reserved for the dangerous.   Those offenders that pose a threat to society.  Prison should not be utilized for those we do not know what to do with. 

Professionals in the criminal justice field have libraries full of research and statistics on every single aspect and element of criminality, high risk populations, and they operate under the best practice they know how.  Professionals in the mental health field have a different library full of research and evidence-based theories of treatment and sustainability.  Different models and theories suggest varying outcomes.  

The one fact we can all agree on, regardless of our background or expertise, is that every person or offender is different and different approaches to reform is needed. A program that is successful for one person may fail for another.  A specific therapeutic approach may change the life of one individual whereas the same may be of no interest or engagement to another. 

This makes rehabilitation difficult.  True reform is only achieved when those who are not affected by the criminal justice system care as much as those that are.  We must design a program that incorporates what professionals already know about criminality and mental illness.  Every idea, concept, and theory must be offered in one working fluid plan providing education and options to the offender.  We must change the way we view addiction and mental illness.  We must change the word rehabilitation to habilitation.  

The Incarceration Diversion Program’s (IDP) goal is just that. IDP serves as the bridge between prison, habilitation, and accountability. It is the link between all pertinent existing programs, functioning in unison for maximum results. IDP merges prison time, probation, individual and group therapy, mental health services, community service projects, education, monitoring, addiction services, eco-therapy, and case management all within the walls of one agency.  The thirteen components to criminal thinking and behavior have been identified and a flexible participant led program has been designed with the theory that once complete, recidivism will not exist if the correct participants are identified. 

This concept is not merely a theory.  IDP has been ran as a pilot program out of the State of Wyoming since late 2018.  The results are jaw dropping.  Of the five active participants, IDP maintains an impressive success rate and has saved the Wyoming taxpayers over a million dollars in incarceration costs. 

Imagine what the outcome could be on a larger scale.  Think about the money taxpayers would save, the lives we could help, the families we could keep together, and the benefit to society by doing everything we can rather than incarceration being the standard. 

Chapter One

The Same Old

The United States has one of the most complex and sophisticated judicial systems in the world. Thousands of people take part in it every day from judges, lawyers, legal assistants, police officers, probation officers, and court officials to offenders, witnesses, family members, and more. City court, municipal court, district court, tribal court, federal court, state supreme courts, and US Supreme Court, each with their own statues to adhere to and guidelines to follow. All applicable prior to sentencing, the prison system is just as complex.

The US incarcerates more people than anywhere else in the world. We house millions of our citizens behind bars at the annual cost to taxpayers of over $150 billion! This includes the cost of operating jails and prisons, probation and parole, court costs, and policing. Each state’s income tax funds state prisons as delegated by the state’s annual budget, and federal prisons are funded by our federal government. Or rather, our federal income tax. In other words, you as the working taxpayer are paying for not only your local offenders, but for offenders across the United States. Yet you, taxpayer, more than likely have limited knowledge of who is behind bars, why they are behind bars, or if they need to be behind bars at all.

Most of us believe that the judicial system and its sophistication is fail-proof, that guilty and dangerous people are the only ones behind bars, and that all who are there deserve to be. Those who believe that are wrong! Approximately 30 percent of all inmates behind bars in America right now do not need to be.

We cannot move forward with prison reform without knowing where we have been and what the results of such actions were. What worked, what didn’t, and what can we take from history to either make it better or simplify? These are questions and subject matter that the US pays hundreds of thousands of dollars to research. In my opinion, we have the answers we need.

Laws have not always been as complex as they are today. In the 1600s, when America was colonized, the law reflected who was in charge, the colonies’ religious convictions, and/or interpretations of what moral conduct was. There was not consistency in laws. Today, laws are written and dispersed in the form of state statutes, and we are protected in large part by our constitutional rights. Police are employed to uphold those laws and have specific rules and ethics they must follow. During the 1600s, policing was driven by economics. It was informal, for-profit, and privately funded. Companies would hire their own security to protect their business investments. The guards who kept the town safe were night watchmen, originally men with a shady history (or in other words, criminals). America did not see the first publicly funded organized police force until the 1830s. This was more to protect shipping interests and the slavery system. During the civil war, the military was the primary form of law enforcement. It was not until President Hoover took office in the 1920s that police were made independent from political leaders and their personal agendas. Today, agendas are written in the form of a legislative bill and voted in the legislature and Senate before they become law.

The focus of punishment has changed dramatically as well in America over time. Prior to the American Revolution, American colonies resorted to public whippings and mutilations to address civil disobedience and deter others from doing the same. The theory of the time was that if an individual were punished harshly and publicly for criminal acts, it would set an example to others who may have like ideas. The belief was to make the punishment so severe that no one else would want to be disgraced in the same manner, therefore others would maintain the colonies’ social rules. Social control was dictated by just a few members of the colony who acted as order keepers. Punishments for civil disobedience, which could be any act that was found offensive, was swift and severe. During this time, for example, if an able-bodied man did not maintain employment, that was considered a crime. His punishment might be a public whipping, followed by being forced to complete miscellaneous jobs for others in the colony free of charge, 10 hours per day until such time he got a job for himself. Today such punishment would be considered inhumane and cruel.

Perhaps others believed public humiliation was an appalling form of punishment as well, bringing America to utilize prisons. The first prison in America was the Walnut Street Prison in Philadelphia and was originally built as a jail prior to the American Revolution. It expanded in 1790s and was called a penitentiary. Penitentiary was a word coined by the Quakers, who developed the concept that law violators should sit and think about what they had done in complete solitude for the entire duration of their sentence. Their belief was eventually the offender would feel remorse for their actions or noncompliance. They believed that criminals would reflect, repent, and never commit another crime, thus be rehabilitated. For some offenders, that may have been effective, but for others, maybe not. It was some 30 years later that a different concept arose out of New York that mandated that inmates work 10 hours a day, six days a week.