Common Ground (CGS)
Logline: Transitioning Prisoners From AC and
Longtime Seg.
Goals: Addressing conflict resolutions that
prisoners in AC/longtime segregation have with prison staff and/or among themselves, resulting in the hopeful
transitioning and release from AC/long time
seg.
Premise of
Program: CGS begins with the
premise that if a prisoner has been placed and held in AC/long seg. status there has to be an
existence of some kind of conflict between either staff or the prisoner and other prisoners that has lead
to this long time segregation placement.
Unique Approach: Instead of placing blame or approaching the
conflict from a subjective point of
view, CGS is designed to not take a particular position in the conflict, but
equalize the concerns voiced by both
the prisoners/staff conflict or prisoner/prisoner conflict that led to the AC/long seg. placement, and focus on resolutions
without placement of blame.
This unique approach is effective because, as in any
conflict, resolution and all points of view must be aired and respected as part
of the resolution discussion. No problem has ever been solved by one party in a given
conflict being burdened with blame, while the other takes on a superiority complex.
Objective: The objective is to find common grounds that
everyone can respect each other’s security
and classification concerns without placing blame and the use of inferiority
labels that makes one party feel the
need to be defensive, which is what most prisoners who are held in AC/long seg. feel. This defensiveness has been the
main reason no previous administration/ clinical programs have successfully led to the prisoners transitioning and
eventually being released from AC/long
seg.
Designed: This is what makes CGS unique and effective. It was
designed specifically with AC/long
seg. prisoners in mind after careful review of complaints, court cases, and
other view points of prisoners held
in these statuses. The CGS think tank recognized the fault lines that kept the prison officials security claims and goals
from registering with the prisoners and the prisoners’ views being considered by the prison officials. Both sides
took a "my way or the highway" approach. Resulting in the stalemate
with the prisoner stuck in AC/long seg. for indefinite years and the prison officials having to pay the cost of these
prisoners becoming more defensive and
in the more extreme cases, psychologically damaged beyond the objective
penological goal of the status. And a psychologically damaged prisoner is not
in anyone’s best interest. It is certainly
not in the best interests of society, where some, if not most, of the prisoners
will be freed to; nor the tax payers, who now have to pay extra to staff
special housing units to police segregated mental units that are in fact disciplinary segregation units, which only
exacerbate the original conflict.
Workshops: The CGS is organized in six workshop sessions:
Session One: Begins with both the prison official and prisoner
reducing to written word what each
feels is the contributory problems.
CGS freedom of expression: in order for the
workshops to be effective there has to be a certain level of free expression. CGS believes all
participants must be allowed to state their views free of punishment. Free expression does not entitle
abusive language used to provoke or disrespect
the other participants, or create more problems.
Session Two: begins with the prison official recitation of the
prisoner's point of view and the prisoner
recitation of the prison officials. Or, in case of prisoner/prisoner, each
would recite the other's views. The
participant must defend each other's view point as if it was their original view to examine and experience the
difference in each other's views.
Session Three: begins with each participant putting forth prospective
resolutions to the conflict, with
discussion.
Session Four: begins with the mediator of CGS - a neutral and
independent person - putting forth
resolutions that participants should consider. The participants can accept or
alter these resolutions and stipulate.
Session Five: begins with the participants pointing out what
issues of concern that the other one
has. They can agree these are ones to be dealt with and agreements to resolve
them.
Session Six: begins with all participants putting forth future resolution
commitments to prevent and stop future
problems and incidents.
Completion of
CGS: Upon completion of CGS,
which is a six week session workshop, the prisoner participant should be placed in a transition housing to be
phased back to general prison
population.
Homework
Assignments: After each workshop
the participant should take a story of real life conflict (past and present, over the span of the workshops) and write a
report stating now both sides to that
real life conflict could resolve the matter. Also, what might be the fault line
problems preventing the current
resolutions. The reports should also point out valid points that each side has that should be taken more
serious by the other side.
Final Report: At the completion of CGS, the
participant should write a one hundred word essay
on how the examination of the report conflicts has impacted their opinion, and if so, made a change in view point.
on how the examination of the report conflicts has impacted their opinion, and if so, made a change in view point.
Disclaimer: The reports written should be
permitted some freedom of expression and not be used to continue AC/Seg. placement,
nor future placement. The reports will be either read at sessions or by the mediator who will
return them to the participant.
Rights: CGS was created by FFUP in house pro se legal consult, R. U. and FFUP reserves all rights.
Donation: FFUP waives the rights to WI DOC to use
CGS as part of the prisoner AC/long time seg. remedy.
F F U P/ R
