Being able to sit back and have people listen to you is a great feeling. To be able to have murderers, rapists, child molesters, thieves, violent gang members, millionaires, and billionaire CEOs listen to you is a GIFT!
One of the most challenging aspects of being a prison mentor is not judging the incarcerated men who I am around and live with daily. Who am I to judge anyone? But I’m not going to lie. There are some crimes that are deemed unacceptable even by inmates. I’ve had to pray to God Almighty to keep me from wanting to hurt those offenders, or from not wanting to mentor them. My job isn’t to judge or tell someone how bad a person they are. That’s what the courts and judges do. My job is to help improve people’s thinking and their lives. Now, I don’t have a degree in psychology; nor am I a psychoanalyst. All my training has come from “Hard Knock University” over the past 21 years of being incarcerated.
The following are four very important techniques that I have taught myself and used over the years, that have helped me become the best prison mentor I can be.
1. LISTENING
Active listening is the most basic mentoring skill, but it has to be done right. When you listen well, you demonstrate to the people you’re mentoring that their concerns are being heard and understood. When talking with hardened criminals, you must appear to be genuinely interested by making encouraging responses such as “Hmmm”, and “Interesting”, or sometimes by reflecting back (paraphrasing certain comments), to show you’ve grasped the meaning and feeling behind their words.
2. BUILDING TRUST
The more a convict trusts you, the more committed they’ll be to having a mentoring relationship with you. The mentoring relationship will be more effective. Trust develops over time like with any relationship. In building trust in my mentorship with inmates, I employ the following, which has worked quite well for me:
Keep all conversations shared confidential (i.e., to myself).
NEVER use an inmate’s real name in any of my blogs.
Spend appropriate time with each man I mentor.
Respect an inmate’s boundaries, and set a limit to how much I push them, as each man is different. I also learn their triggers – a must.
Always admit when I’m wrong, and take full responsibility for correcting my mistakes.
3. ENCOURAGING
Encouragement is the most valued mentoring skill when dealing with a convict. Recognition and sincere positive verbal feedback are very much needed in this unrealistic environment. Effective mentoring encourages inmates, which will increase their confidence, and enable them to develop into positive human beings. I try to always point out positive traits, praise them privately, talk positively about all inmates in front of the class, and express gratitude when needed.
4. IDENTIFYING GOALS AND CURRENT REALITY
All prison mentors should help their mentees create personal visions, set up specific goals, and get a solid understanding and grasp of their current realities. As a prison mentor, one must be clear, and talk to their mentees about their personal goals, dreams, and visions of their current and future lives. The inmates will be very interested in how the mentor can help them set and reach a specific goal or goals. Also, a good prison mentor has to know their mentees’ strengths, weaknesses and limitations. You see, prison is a beast that feeds on depression, misery, and bad thoughts. My goal is to get the inmates, especially the younger ones, to see their worth, and to understand that they still have a lot of life to live, but that they must put in the work.
I’m not going to tell you it’s easy, but God has given me a gift and I’m doing my best to help improve the lives of incarcerated men!
Advocate/Mentor
Leonard E Love