Building character behind prison walls

McLOUD — Assaults are down.

Common courtesy is on the rise.

That's what matters when Warden Millicent Newton-Embry looks out on the yard at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center these days.

Hundreds of inmates at the medium- and maximum-security women's prison in McLoud have been participating in a new program designed to instill character and faith values.

Newton-Embry said she was eager to begin the Faith and Character Community Program when it was recommended by Justin Jones, director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

The program will be a year old in March, and the warden said she couldn't be happier.

"We were having a large number of assaults and misconduct. We were hoping it (the program) could teach the women another way to interact,” Newton-Embry said.

Families of the 100 inmates following the character curriculum of the program gathered at the prison Wednesday for special activities related to the initiative.

Another 100 inmates following the program's faith curriculum met with their families Friday for special activities and guest speakers.

Newton-Embry said the program is voluntary because of the faith component, but both the character and faith curriculums are so popular there is a waiting list to participate.

During the correctional center's recent family day gathering, every hand in the room went up when family members were asked if they had seen a change in their incarcerated relative.

Staff members passed out tissues as several inmates and family members alike cried tears of happiness and pride.

Housed together in "character” and "faith” pods or housing units, inmates in the program, like Patrice Drake, say it has been "lifesaving.”

Drake, 37, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the 1993 shooting deaths of two Oregon girls. Drake said she was convicted of the slayings along with eight co-defendants. Prosecutors said the Oregon victims were killed after they smuggled a shipment of cocaine into Oklahoma City aboard a bus.

Drake said her poor decisions resulted in prison time, but she has learned a new way of thinking.

"I didn't have any sense of direction or self-respect then,” Drake said. "I've been incarcerated for 15 years. I've taken lots of programs, and I don't believe I've ever been in a program that is this intense.

"It helps women really open up about the issues they deal with. This really hits home.”

Leo Brown, Corrections Department chaplain and volunteer coordinator, said the Faith and Character Community Program's main purpose is to change offender behavior and improve the environment on the prison yard. He said it is based on a similar program being implemented at several prisons in Florida.

Brown and Newton-Embry said once those inmates make the kind of positive life changes encouraged by the program, the hope is that they will deter prison violence and other misbehavior simply by their changed attitudes.

"We've seen changes in offenders' behavior that the staff has been very pleased about and sometimes very surprised at,” Brown said.

Newton-Embry said staff members took a chance by recommending some of the more disruptive inmates for the program. The results have been positive.

"It's been a paradigm shift for all of us in regards to taking a chance on some of those inmates who we didn't think were really serious about it,” she said. "I've heard some women say, ‘I haven't said thank you in a long time.' Simple things like that add up.”

Brown said the core curriculum for the program is Character First, with other aspects added such as relationship-building through the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative and parenting skills through Children of Promise-Mentors of Hope.

The inmates have six hours of training each day, including lessons and program-related recreational activities

Newton-Embry said inmates deal with peer pressure to say or do things that cause problems and stir conflict, just like teens.

The test for the program's first graduates will be what they do when inmates who did not participate in the program challenge them to do something disruptive.

"We hope they are going to say, ‘We don't need to do that.' That's the benefit to the prison environment,” she said.

Ilinda Jackson coordinates the program at Mabel Bassett, and Tim Wilkins coordinates the Oklahoma State Reformatory's program at the Granite correctional facility.

Jackson said many women entering Mabel Bassett for the first time don't know what to expect at the prison so they typically respond with negativity.

As they learn to focus on a new value system, "they're learning how to deal with anger, how not to blow up,” Jackson said.

"They're not afraid to be kind or show humility. They are constantly learning ways to deal with the situations that landed them in prison, and they can be the ones that establish a new culture here.”

Wilkins agreed.

"There's a lot of negative peer pressure in prison. That's the code,” he said. "At OSR the program has really been a catalyst for change. It has had a calming effect. We still have incidents, but they have gone down.”

Inmates in the program have created a choir, character drill team and liturgical dance team that showed off their skills on Wednesday.

Embry and Brown said the special activities resulting from the program have been a bonus, along with the positive change in the prison environment.

However, they said the impact of the new program will also be felt in other important ways.

Embry said about 80 percent of Mabel Bassett inmates are mothers of young children.

Their changed behavior and attitudes will make them better role models for their children.

Also, she and Brown said many of the program participants said they feel more of an urgency to put into practice their new value system so that when they get out of prison they can stay out.

"It was very exciting today to see the kids' faces as their mothers did the drill and talked about character traits,” Embry said.

Mabel Bassett also houses youthful offenders, and Embry said she is hopeful the older program participants will set good examples for the younger women who now call the prison home.

Meanwhile, Drake said she feels good when she thinks about the Character First traits that "really empower women.”

Drake, who received a Character Recognition Award on Wednesday, said she will come up for parole soon.

If she is paroled, she said, the character traits she has learned will remain foremost in her mind.

"They give us hope.”