Welcome to the Pro-Social Club: C&C's Criminogenic Addiction & Recovery Academy (CARA) program

We are all haunted by our past sometimes and the choices we have made; but someone who behaves in a criminal way is often imprisoned by their entrenched, anti-social ways of thinking.

“We can learn a lot about ourselves and gain insights about how we develop anti-social and pro-social tendencies by considering how prisoners think,” said Mike Mitchell, Clinical Director at Crisis & Counseling Centers (C&C).

Crisis & Counseling Centers helps individuals with substance abuse and other behavioral health issues and recently partnered with the Kennebec County Correctional Facility (KCCF), Maine PreTrial Services and others to pilot the Criminogenic Addiction & Recovery Academy (CARA) program.

Mitchell wrote the curriculum for CARA that address criminogenic thinking and behavior, based on best practices in the field and with an aim of addressing the emotional core of social behaviors.

“We wanted to create something that helped people understand how they got stuck in criminal and anti-social behaviors and what they could do to get out,” Mitchell said.

The five-week intensive addiction treatment program helps inmates recognize and avoid pathways to crime and early risk factors while promoting attitudes and relationships to help break the criminal cycle. The program graduated its sixth class on May 11, 2011 and is a first-of-its-kind in the state, combining intensive counseling, group work and a unique therapeutic setting designed to reinforce pro-social values.  

“We all exist in a continuum between pro-social and anti-social values,” Mitchell said.

“Most of us made pro-social attachments early on, but many of the people treated in CARA became ingrained in their destructive behaviors at a very early age ... a majority come from families who have been entrenched in these anti-social behaviors throughout generations."

"Once they’re immersed in an anti-social lifestyle they learn to justify their behaviors,” he said. 

The CARA program is designed to break this destructive cycle and help participants establish positive relationships. “Often when people become anti-social, they still look for help to get out of this mindset. Unfortunately, they often look in the wrong places,” said C&C Director of Correctional Health & Jail Diversion Services Bob Kingman.  

“We try to get CARA graduates to reconnect to their communities and see that they can change … They can live productive lives.”

Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty agrees, saying, “I believe in redemption. None of us are throw-away people.” Liberty, who has spent more than 20 years at the Kennebec County Sheriff's Department, said programs like CARA are vital. “In many respects this is the most important work we do here,” he said.

“The life changes are obvious to everyone,” he said, adding: “I have seen changes appear right before my eyes.”

Hope and redemption are important ingredients of the program. When one participant was released early, he even returned to complete the program. “It is highly unusual for someone to ask to return to jail,” joked Kingman. The program is sometimes unfamiliar to individuals who might have felt like they didn’t belong or no one cared for them since they were very young.

“These people almost always come from neglected and dysfunctional families and one of our goals is to remind them that there was a time they stopped caring, a time they gave up … We combat this by anchoring to pro-social bonds,” Mitchell said. Sometimes these pro-social bonds come from institutions like church, work or schools, but they are also often a result of interpersonal relationships, connections with family, friends and loved ones that establish empathetic bonds.

“It’s important for them to develop empathetic bonds such as reciprocity, and learn how they can repair trust,” Mitchell said.

CARA Grad Credits Program for Saving His Life

When Ted was a kid playing cops and robbers, he didn’t think he would end up wearing prison clothes for real when he grew up.

“I really looked up to cops,” said the 28-year-old CARA graduate. “I saw them helping people and that’s what I always wanted to do – help people.”

Instead, Ted got involved with the wrong crowd in school, experimented with drugs and alcohol, and began a life of crime. He got into legal problems when he was just 8, started doing hard drugs before he was even a teenager, and eventually was shooting heroine and stealing Oxycontin.

“Things escalated and I got good at doing a lot of bad things,” he said. He surrounded himself with negative and destructive people and picked the wrong sorts of role models.  “I got to a point where I looked up to the people who were bad influences in my life.”

By the time he was arrested, he was firmly entrenched in a life of drugs, crime and self-destructive behavior. He was using “massive amounts of drugs … Oxy and Heroine, mostly, and if I hadn’t gotten into the program and got clean, I probably would have ended up dead.”  Many of his old friends– who were involved in the same lifestyle – ended up dying at an early age. He didn’t want that for himself.

Ted’s life took a turn when he was screened into the CARA while doing time for his most recent offense. “It saved my life. If I didn’t go into that program I wouldn’t have learned how to be pro-social. I wouldn’t have changed my criminal thinking and I wouldn’t have gotten sober. I’d be dead.”

Before CARA, Ted just wanted to “get as messed up as possible,” but now he has goals and ambitions. He wants to be there for his wife and their three children – support them financially and emotionally –and he wants to be a good role model. His own father taught him sports and other activities, but was himself an alcoholic and drug user. Ted wants a different life for his children.

“I want to be a strong role model for my kids … I want them to look up to me and be proud of what I’ve done.”
Ted is looking for work, but it’s been difficult to find a job with his criminal record and the economic downturn. “It’s tough, but I’m not giving up, that’s for sure. I’ve had enough of giving up.”

In some ways, Ted has gone full circle.  As a child he dreamt of bing a police officer, so he could help others. Today he has his sights set on becoming a drug counselor. “I don’t care if I’ve got to go back to school, it’s what I want to do … A lot of drug counselors these days learn everything in books, but they’ve never lived out these experiences.” he said, adding: “I think I could help a lot of people.”

Letting Go of the Past and Saying 'No' to Destructive Impulses

Joe, a recent CARA grad, suffered terrible physical and mental abuse between the ages of three and 11. Those early traumatic events set him on a path of self-destruction that he followed for many years.
 
“I know that I can’t change the past,” he said, explaining that he has spent all of his adult life trying to move beyond what happened in his childhood.
 
For Joe, moving on meant accepting his role in his current problems. “I can’t just keep crying about the past,” he said. He often found himself blaming everyone in the world but himself for his problems and finally “realized that nothing was going to change until I looked at myself.”
 
Joe credits the CARA program and other organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous for helping him say ‘no’ to the destructive impulses in his life, but he’s also come to a place in his life where he sincerely wants to be a different person. “I’ve been a drug addict my whole life. I’ve been homeless. I’ve been down. But now I’m in a place where I’m spiritually fit. I’ve finally had enough of living that way.”
 
He admits that he enjoyed drinking and using drugs, but realized his life had become ‘upside down.’ “I finally got to the point where I said, hell, I don’t want to go out like that. I don’t want to be remembered as a drunken bum lying in the gutter.”

“I need to let go of things that happened in my past … life moves on with or without you,” he said. “You’ve got to live life on its own terms.”

What are life’s terms for Joe now that he’s recovering from alcohol and drug addiction and is a free man? He began working on his Graduate Equivalent Degree (GED), has two jobs, and has been working at getting a license and vehicle. “Everyone has really worked with me, I have a good boss, I’m hanging out with good people … that makes a big difference,” he said.
 
Eventually he would like to move out of state to be closer to his adult daughter “I don’t know her as well as I’d like,” he said. “She knew the old me, not the guy in front of you today. I was a homeless drug addict sleeping on the streets, but that’s not who I am now.”