July 30, 2025 Big Ideas Memo
Date: July 30, 2025
To: Deputy Director Smith
From: Michael Santos, Founder, Prison Professors Charitable Corporation
Subject: Executive Summary — Bold Ideas
Thank you for inviting my input during our July 28 meeting. In response to your request for bold, actionable ideas, I respectfully offer the following strategies, grounded in decades of lived experience, national outreach, and results-driven reform efforts.
Define and Incentivize Excellence
Define “extraordinary and compelling adjustment” and introduce it at Admissions & Orientation.
Use merit-based incentives within Custody & Classification to incentivize personal development.
Encourage wardens to lead results-driven cultures, tracking participation in success planning, and competing with wardens in similarly rated institutions. Apply the same strategies society uses to measure CEO performance with P&L—except here the metric is improving lives.
Deliver 24/7 Access to Growth Tools
Use tablets to offer video, audio, and text-based self-directed learning (reentry, mindset, career, values).
Guide people to build release plans, track growth, and make the case for higher liberty through merit.
Promote Transparency and Motivation
Create public or internal dashboards where people earn points for self-directed preparations such as journaling, release planning, book reports, and skills-building.
Encourage community support, employment opportunities, and dignity restoration through visible progress.
Expand Merit-Based Liberty Pathways
Offer earned access to:
Lower security levels
Home confinement, work-release, or furloughs
Honor dorms, extended visits, or work-release programs
Digital skills programs tied to income opportunities
Foster Public-Private Innovation
Launch Shark Tank–style competitions inside institutions where participants pitch plans for success post-release.
Invite business mentors, offering rewards like transfer eligibility or advocacy support.
Create a Clemency Support Pipeline in partnership with the Office of the Pardon Attorney to identify and elevate reform-minded candidates.
Next Steps
With your support, Prison Professors Charitable is ready to collaborate with the BOP to scale these ideas through training tools, institutional visits, and partnerships. I look forward to continuing the conversation.
I offer a more thorough development of these ideas in the pages to follow.
Michael Santos
Phone: 415-419-1728
Email: Michael@prisonprofessors.org
Prison Professors Charitable Corporation
PO Box 50996 • Irvine, CA 92619 • IRS 501(c)(3) #85-2603315 • www.PrisonProfessors.org
Email: Michael@prisonprofessors.org