programs so if your crime or issue does not fall into this area, you are shit ou t of luc .

Ihave seen many people in prison get drugs by tric ery or by fa ing s ymptoms justbecause they wanted to get high. Often ones with deep-rooted psychol ogical issues aresent to A.A Alcohols Anonymous (which is a very good group). Al coholism is often onlythe symptom of another problem; you cannot just treat the symptom and expect it towor . It would be li e going to the doctor with cancer a nd him/her giving you a pain illerand sending you on your way. It might scare yo u to now that less then 20% of thepeople leaving prison have a good understandi ng of the dynamics of the offence, thatmeans there are 80% who do not. To people who are on the outside and say who cares if they get help or not, they do not d eserve it. You are right we do not deserve it, I agreewith you 100%. However you do not deserve to be or someone you love the next victimof our crime either, wh en this person could have been helped and the act of crimeprevented. My main goa

l for this site is to prevent future crime, and that ma es it worthit. I am not saying that programs li e AA or NA or anything li e that do not wor , theyare bi g assets and very helpful to the offender and any other type of self help group aswell. The fear is when you treat the symptoms you do not fix the real problem it onlymas s it. I am not saying you are doomed and will fail and end up bac in prison; you just need to ta e the steps to find out why you committed the crime . You need to loo deeper then just the surface, so tal ing to a good psychologi st who is provided for youthrough CSC (Corrections Service Canada) would be a ve ry good idea. In my ownstruggle I did not find the psychologist in the prison to be much help for the first 4 years,later when a new one came in I did find him to be a great help. My saving grace was thechaplaincy; I went there as soon as I could and signed up for counseling and it was notlong after the wor started. T he best thing was he made me face who I was and what I didhead on. It too me ye ars to understand the dynamics of my offence, and he was a hugehelp in this proc ess. If you are serious about staying out of prison and ma ing it, you aregoing to have to be proactive, you cannot just sit there and wait for things to come t o you.Stop coming up with reasons why you cannot obtain this and starts focusing your effortson helping yourself understand to the best of your ability. You do not owe this toyourself; you owe this to the victim of your crime.Prison Code | Honor among ThievesLet me put it this way, if you are living by the code on the outside of prison, you will notbe out of prison that long. To anyone who has not been in prison, the code means a set of rules among thieves. However, it is not always followed and often twisted to fitsomeone's advantage. In simple terms it means you do not rat (tell what someone did) onanyone or give up your co-accuse d of a crime, or other offenders, even if you were thevictim of the crime. The c ode prohibits you from stealing from one inmate or another(that one always made me laugh) an oxymoron at best. Let me put it into context, if yousee someone mur dered in front of your eyes you are not to help or assist the police inanyway. I t would be one thing on the outside but in prison you really are better off not tosay anything. I now that may be difficult for some to grasp, however if you w ere inprison for awhile you now what I am tal ing about. It can eep you alive and well insideprison; however this line of thin ing will destroy you on the out side of prison. You

cannot follow that code on the outside and be a normal law abiding citizen. I am notsaying you have to run around and tell on people for every little thing, how ever, if yourhome is bro en into, you have to do what regular people do call the police and let themhandle it. If you follow the prison code you would have to s ee vigilanty justice on thatperson or persons reasonable, you just cannot live li e that on the outside and get awaywith it over and over again. The code that you live by to survive inside prison is the verything that will put you bac in prison. This process will ta e more time for some thenothers and it is hard to ic . The reasons it is so hard to get this way of thin ing out of your mind is t hat the punishment for disobeying inside prison can be very malicious innature, it could be anything in the from ostracism, sexual assault, aggravated assault,

astring of brutal assaults, and in some cases murder. If you get labeled a rat i n prison itwill follow you forever, even if you do not get physically hurt you w ill never live itdown. If you get beat with stic s or pipes or stabbed, by sever al convicts and survive.You are better off not saying anything, why? Because whe n you get better they are onlygoing to put you right bac out there with the peo ple who did it. If you say anything andthey do ship the other guys to another pr ison, their friends will ta e care of you firstchance they get. Not only that, o ften you go bac out when you are not even fully healedand can't defend yourself as well as before the attac . Your other option is going to PC(Protective Custo dy). Sounds great right, NOT! You are loc ed in a cell 23 hours aday. Sure you ar e physically safer then you were, however you are more li ely to commitsuicide a fter a period of time. I can recall being thrown into segregation one time overs omething stupid. I was only in there for 5 days; you do not see daylight, the on ly way I new it was night was because they gave a mattress for 8 hours and yan e d it bac out inthe morning. It was a cold, cement type room. Your meals came th rough a little hole inthe door, you had to as for toilet paper, and so if no on e was there to hear you and youhad to go, well you guessed it. After about 3 day s you start to hear voices, and becomedelusional. I cannot image living li e tha t; there are some situations in life that I thin death could only improve. I am explaining that mostly for people who were never inprison, so they can get some concept of why it is so hard to get away from this line of thin ing.Over time t he prison code will slowly wor its way out of your thoughts as you wor onsocia lizing yourself and wor ing and doing what you should. It will still have somebe nefit to you in the halfway house, but you will need to learn to limit it and sh ould be inthe process of being open to other ways of thin ing.Employment | When do I need to get a job?Quite often when guys/gals get out of prison, they try to obtain a job fairly quic ly. Thatis the reason why I am writing about this. Eve ryone needs to wor and have money we allunderstand that. However, if you have b een inside prison for awhile you should not focuson getting a job right away. Th e biggest mista e you can ma e is trying to be too normal,because you are not ye t. I do not now if anyone has told you that yet. Most of us haveproblems with j ust basic functions of life and real life situations. You need to learn howto do that first before you can put the pressure of a job, or school on top of it. Yo u need tolearn the basics of life first, li e it or not, you might thin you no w how to do that, but

most do not. You did not go to prison because you were good and following the la ws.Depending on the person it ta es about 6-12 months before you are ready to ha ndle thestress and responsibility of a full time job. The focus must be on, ma i ng yourself betterand moving to a point where you can function in a day to day s ociety. Doing programs asrequired, following the rules of parole and the halfway house are a must. Employment isgood, however if you are not able to handle the day to day stress and regular problems, a job will only cause you more stress an d eventually could lead you to the brea ing point if you move to quic lyBrought to you by Cons Helping Cons, you may distribute this to anyone for free. Youmay not add to it or change anything; it is my story please eep it that way.Cons He

lping Conshttp://www.conshelpingcons.com

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