Reentry Initiative Prison Programs

RBN is committed to effectively reduce recidivism by bridging the communication and education gap between prisoners and the communities they are being released into. The methodology is visible and accessible networking and programs centered in reentry needs.

The Art of Trauma: Grief Impairment

Grief that gets stuck in the heart turns into anger. Anger drives recidivism. The art of altered books is introduced as a tool to examine and process grief and loss.

Trauma-Informed Care addresses what happened to the child; the fact they had no coping skills or effective mentoring to move through the trauma; and the acting out that followed. The grief-impairment is therefore identified and art is the way of moving through it. This is a 20 week, certificated, hands-on class using the Grief Recovery Handbook and the expressive art media of altered books.

The Empowerment of Socio-Metaphysics

Graduation Day. Pictured: Carol Briney; Andrew Hackett-Bey, Program Coordinator, Prisoner; Khelleh Konteh, ODRC No. Reg. Dir.

The course examines society’s ideas and the successful interaction of the metaphysics of self within societies. In other words, we examine social structure, individual core beliefs, and how they might interact, identifying more life choices to select from. Sociology, science, theology, philosophy, history, psychology, and anthropology are utilized to examine the core beliefs and to encourage awareness and deductive reasoning. This is a certificated 16-week course, designed and facilitated as a team effort with RBN staff and prisoners as a reentry bridging initiative. Prisoners can be certified to instruct this course.

Analysis of the Evolution of Religion Inside Male Prisons, as a Predictor of Recidivism

Carol Briney leading a class discussion with prisoners

This discussion group was created to prove a graduate paper by the same name. Prisoners filled out a 28-page questionnaire. The discussions occurred over a four-month period, in four-hour sessions. Though the sociology paper had received an A+, the 12 participating prisoners proceeded to dissect and disagree with most all of the social constructs and theories, and made good sense in their analogy. The beauty of bantering with male prisoners on this level is that they tend to think on so many more dimensions than we on the outside do. Their approach and perspective has been dramatically altered by the prison experience; that great value is found in their conclusions and questions. It was the final consensus of the group that the paper had no real value in its content, and the author, Carol E. Briney, concurred.

Reentry Networking Class

The purpose of this class is to brainstorm, discuss, and formulate ideas that are realistic and beneficial for state and national reentry programs and networking. The class is limited to 25 students and meets for three hours. This reentry initiative is an example of bottom-up thinking.

Mentoring Through Erudition

In a structured classroom setting, inmates instruct other inmates in subjects that they themselves have spent years researching and studying. Classes average 20 students and provide educational, vocational, and mentoring opportunities for participants. The classes are certificated and the semesters are 20 weeks in length. This program is set up and run similar to a mini-college inside the prison.

Prisoner Publication Center

RBN offers production and publishing services to select authors who are incarcerated.

Prison Library Partnership

The shelves of prison libraries are being filled with books that are donated from universities, groups, and individuals through RBN.

Text books, metaphysical and philosophy books, quality fiction books, and business books are some of the types of books that are being requested. If you have books to donate to prison libraries, please contact RBN at 330.455.8828

RBN also designs many vocational and holistic community service projects inside prisons.