…what if prisons today began exploring the causes that brought their inmates to prison?
Time is the unseen marker of beginnings and endings. Time is like a flowing river. Everything that ever has been, is, or will be enters the River of Time. Everything. People. Institutions. Ideas. Even prisons. Even prison inmates.
The River of Time flows only one way. Downstream. Upstream are all realities that have already happened. All. Downstream are all the realities yet to happen.
Prisons have traditionally focused their inmate rehabilitation efforts downstream. Prisons help inmates change their behavior. Change their thinking. Make better choices. Learn new skills. All good. This rehabilitation work matters. Prisons should continue these rehabilitation efforts.
But, what might happen if prison rehabilitation efforts also began looking upstream in the River of Time? What happened before the crime? What prior experiences shaped the person who eventually made the choices that brought them to prison?
Could understanding the way it has been help an inmate begin to see a way it could be? We think this question is worthy of asking. We call this area of inquiry Root-Cause Rehabilitation.
Looking upstream in the River does not excuse an inmate’s criminal behavior. It does not remove responsibility. Looking upstream asks an inmate to examine more honestly how they arrived at this point in their River of Time.
Our years working with inmates have led us to two hypotheses about what might happen when an inmate willingly begins looking upstream—and what might happen downstream in the River of Time.