From California to New York, from Michigan to Arizona, from Maine to Florida, about 600,000 criminals walk out of the nation's state and federal prisons annually and move into our communities. One of the most recent recidivism studies reveal that more than 75 percent of them return to prison within three years. The study, however, does not explain that happenes to the other 25 percent--about 150,000 individuals. Do they change? Do they become contributing citizens? Chances are that most of them do not become contributing citizens. You see, if 150,000 former prisoners every year bean the arduous trek from crime to contribution, we would begin downsizin the prison industrial complex. Instead, prison populations grow continually and studies project more of the same.

A recent report from the Public Safety Performance Project, financed by the Pew Charitable Trust, drew the following conclusions:

1. The nation's state and federal prison population will reach 1,722,477 by 2011--an increase of approximately 192,000 over a five-year period.
2. This rate of growth--about 38,400 more inmates per year--is markedly higher than the growth rate of the past three years.
3. The prison incarceration rate will continue to grow, from 491 per 100,000 U.S. residents in 2005 to 511 per 100,000 in 2006, then to 562 per 100,000 in 2011.
4. The Western reion will have the largest prison population increase (18 percent) while the Northeast will experience the smallest growth, seven percent.

This next statistic boggles the mind. Pew reports: "Almost two-thirds of the estimated 600,000 plus people who are admitted to prison are those who have failed to complete probation or parole."

Did you catch that?

Yes, we release about 600,000 inmatesw every year, but at the same time, we imprison another 600,000 criminals.

It is clear that many of those 600,000 criminals who go to prison each year are repeat offenders who were released last year, the year before that, or the year before that. So the question becomes how do we shatter this incredibly expensive cycle of crime, arrest, conviction, incarceration, release and recidivism (CACIRR). Is it possible? Can it be done? Is there a systematic process by which criminals can become community contributions?

Unequivocably yes! It is not easy! But criminals can change. I know! I did it!

I launched my crime career when I was five-years old by stealin $5 from my aunt's pocketbook. Thus, for 20 years, I did something criminal almost every day. Imprisoned when I was 17-years-old, I spent more than 80 months of the 120 months during the 1960s in North Carolina's prisons. Released Dec. 9, 1968, I've spent 39 years learning how to change, how to make the arduous trek from crime to contribution.

I summarize the process this way! To change, a criminal must:

1. Break the crime habit
2. Earn an ever-free life
3. Achieve the crime and prison record into insignificance
4. Teach and train others to duplicate his or her efforts

I will deal with each of these steps to change in subsequent article, but now please understand that the families and loved ones of criminals (FLOC) play critically important roles in this process, More on that later, too,.

See you at success!