THEIR SHOT AT REDEMPTION

JEFFERSON CITY -- Letters from James Tyndal and Donald V. Cline
brought me to the oldest prison west of the Mississippi River.

Tyndal is an inmate at the maximum-security Jefferson City
Correctional Center. Cline is associate superintendent at the
165-year-old prison.

Each wanted to show how a unique in-house, inmate- and staff-run drug
and alcohol rehabilitation program is changing men's lives. It's
called the Intensive Therapeutic Community.

It started six years ago after inmates asked the director of the
Missouri Department of Corrections for a long-term drug treatment
program. The director challenged them to create one.

The offenders and staff did, borrowing from such things as the 12
Steps in Alcoholics Anonymous and other successful programs that
create a community around inmates changing their addictive and
criminal behavior. "The mainstay of the program is they take
ownership," said Cline, who received an award on Thursday for the
program at the 101st Annual Conference of the Missouri Association for
Social Welfare. "They realize they are their brother's keeper. They
realize they have to work together."

That's important because drugs and alcohol are linked to up to 80
percent of all crimes, Cline said.

Jerry W. Ellison, substance abuse unit supervisor, walked me through
the prison. Several people told me, "If you sober up a horse thief,
you still have a horse thief."

The criminal behavior and the addiction must be confronted. The
inmates are doing that, and it has made them better men.

"I have some solid footing now," said Tyndal, who started drinking
beer and smoking marijuana and cigarettes at age 7. Feeding a
methamphetamine habit landed him in prison. "I know that if I make the
right choices today, it will help me out tomorrow."

For the six months to one year of the program the men in the Intensive
Therapeutic Community are isolated from the rest of the population to
keep them from reverting to the "con-mentality." Their quarters were
spotless. They dressed neatly in gray slacks and program T-shirts,
containing an eagle with a snake and chain in its talons.

Ellison said the snake symbolizes alcohol and drugs. The chain stands
for the broken addiction, and the eagle embodies the men soaring free
of their former lives.

The men stood at attention. In unison they greeted me as I entered
their living quarters. Regime and discipline play big roles in their
rehabilitation.

"Many of these guys never learned discipline," Cline said. "That's why
they're here.

"What we're hoping for is right living. We don't tolerate excuses.
You're responsible for what you do."

Inmate facilitators Darryl Burton and Richard Brown said the program
worked through "spiritual confrontation, isolation and
decontamination." Burton and Brown said they work to give the men a
new commitment to life.

"I have an opportunity to be a role model for positive change," said
Burton, who had been a drug dealer.

"It gives me a new way of living, a new way of thinking and a new way
of problem-solving," Brown said. "What brought me to prison was mainly
my drinking."

Nearly 250 men are in the program now, and there is a waiting list of
about 500 people. About 150 have moved back into the general
population of nearly 2,000 inmates.

Corrections officials said the program graduates were easier to
manage. They could help change others in prisons.

Offenders in the program are between the ages 18 and 61. They've been
convicted for driving while intoxicated, serving four years or less,
to people sentenced to life without parole on murder convictions.
About 60 men have been paroled, although parole is never promised to
those who complete the Intensive Therapeutic Community.

"Some of these people won't get out," Cline said. "The whole idea is
they can live better lives."

Many people have noted the difference. "A mother wrote, 'You gave me
back my son,' " Cline said.

I like what Kenneth Gilbert wrote in an essay for me: "I am truly
sorry for being the person that I was. I will never be that person
again."

Tuesday marked the 30th graduation. The program even compelled paroled
offenders Craig Lancaster and Kenny Heistand to return to a summer
graduation I attended to see others benefit as they had.

"I came back because it makes me feel good in my heart seeing those
angels sitting in here," Heistand said. "It makes me feel good to
still see that glow in them."

I know what he means. I could see it, too.