People who work through Prison Professors courses in jails and prisons across America send us a lot of questions.
Sometimes they write to us directly. Sometimes a family member sends the question. Sometimes a staff member passes the question along.
One question I received was this:
How do we expose the true nature of the prison system?
I understand why someone would ask that question.
A person living inside the system sees things that many people in society never see. He may see violence. He may see people adjust to gangs. He may see failure become normal. He may see staff members who do not seem to care whether anyone prepares for a better future. He may see a system that talks about rehabilitation but does not always create the conditions that lead to rehabilitation.
A person inside may want the world to know.
But in my view, the better question is not:
How do we expose the prison system?
The better question is:
How do we get the result we want?
That distinction matters.
If we want to change outcomes, we have to think strategically. We have to think about the audience. We have to think about what people in society value. We have to understand the message they have heard for decades. And then we have to build a better story—one that shows how improving prison outcomes serves everyone.
What Does Society Want?
Most people in society want safer communities.
They want lower crime rates.
They want their families to live in peace.
They want their children to grow up without fear.
Many people believe prisons are the answer because prisons are all they know. For more than 50 years, America has lived through an era of mass incarceration. We built more prisons. We passed tougher sentencing laws. We reduced or eliminated parole in many systems. We measured justice by the length of a sentence.
That approach shaped the way people think.
If someone breaks the law, many people believe the proper response is simple:
Lock that person up.
Make the sentence longer.
Make confinement harder.
That belief did not come out of nowhere. An entire ecosystem grew around mass incarceration. Politicians, prosecutors, media voices, prison unions, private vendors, and others all influenced the message. For decades, the message was that punishment would make society safer.
So when a person in prison says, “We need to expose the system,” many people in society may not listen. They may say, “Good. Prison should be hard.”
That is why we have to be careful with our message.
If we only talk about how bad prison is, we may not persuade the people who have the power to support change. But if we show that better outcomes lead to safer communities, stronger families, lower costs, and more law-abiding citizens, we begin to build common ground.
The Goal Is Not Exposure
I am not saying we should ignore the problems.
We should be honest.
The prison system has many problems. In many places, people do not get enough access to meaningful education. They do not get enough incentives to work toward self-improvement. They may spend years in an environment that weakens family ties, limits personal responsibility, and conditions people to live by institutional rules rather than the rules of a free society.
That is a problem.
But exposing the problem is not enough.
If we want change, we need to show a better way.
The goal should not be to embarrass the prison system. The goal should be to improve outcomes.
What outcome do I want?
I want more people to have a pathway to earn freedom through merit.
I want people in prison to have incentives to work toward reconciliation, personal growth, education, and preparation for success.
I want a system that recognizes a basic truth:
We cannot change the past.
People made bad decisions. Those bad decisions created victims, harmed communities, and brought consequences. A criminal conviction brings a series of problems. A person may go through court, sentencing, confinement, community confinement, supervised release, and the long-term collateral consequences that follow.
But the result should not be that a person enters prison and comes out worse.
If a person comes home with the wrong mindset, broken family ties, no skills, no work plan, no support network, and no legitimate pathway to earn a living, society does not benefit.
That person may feel shut out from the world of opportunity. If legitimate society closes its doors, the person may drift toward the underworld or some other subculture that does not serve anyone well.
We should want better than that.
Why History Matters
When I returned to society after serving 26 years in federal prison, San Francisco State University invited me to teach. That opportunity is one reason we use the name Prison Professors.
At the university, I taught a course called The Architecture of Incarceration. I wanted students to understand how prisons developed and why our current system does not have to be the only response to crime.
To understand the prison system, we should look back.
In earlier periods of Western civilization, society did not use prisons the way we use them today. During medieval times, punishment often meant corporal punishment. Authorities might execute a person, torture a person, or use public suffering as the sentence.
Prisons were not the punishment. They were holding places until the punishment could be carried out.
During the Renaissance and the centuries that followed, some people began to believe society could do better. Instead of using only physical punishment, they considered another idea. Since every human being has only a limited amount of time, the state could take away some of that time. The loss of liberty would become the punishment.
That idea helped give birth to the modern prison.
In the United States, one early model developed in Pennsylvania. The word penitentiary came from the idea of penitence. The Quakers believed that if a person sat alone in a cell with a Bible, he might reflect, repent, and return to society as a better person.
That was the theory.
When the prison system began, long-term imprisonment could mean 18 months. Today, we have people serving decades, and sometimes life, in prison.
That should make us think.
The birth of the prison may have been an advancement from corporal punishment. But over the past 200 years, we have not advanced enough. We still measure justice by how many calendar pages turn.
We should be asking a better question:
What can we do to improve outcomes?
Measuring Time Is Not Enough
A long sentence may satisfy society’s desire for punishment.
But a long sentence does not automatically make a person better.
Time alone does not create accountability.
Time alone does not teach communication skills.
Time alone does not restore family relationships.
Time alone does not prepare a person for employment.
Time alone does not help a person understand the harm he caused or the steps he must take to make amends.
If we want people to return to society as law-abiding, contributing citizens, we need a system that encourages them to develop the habits, skills, and mindset that society values.
That means we should stop relying only on the calendar.
We should also look at merit.
What has the person done with the time?
Has he learned?
Has he grown?
Has he documented progress?
Has he built a release plan?
Has he strengthened communication skills?
Has he worked to reconcile with society?
Has he built a support network?
Has he shown that he is preparing to live as a responsible citizen?
Those questions matter.
Make Prison More Like America
In America, we incentivize the pursuit of excellence.
If a person works harder, learns more, creates more value, builds stronger relationships, or contributes more, that person can open new opportunities. He can earn promotions. He can build a business. He can buy property. He can choose where to live. He can choose what to study. He can choose the people with whom he associates.
Prison works differently.
In prison, the system often makes people the same.
People wear the same clothes.
They eat the same food.
They live by the same schedule.
They are told where to go, when to move, what to study, and what programs may or may not be available.
There is little private property.
There are few opportunities to build an independent life.
The system teaches compliance, but society requires initiative.
That is a problem.
If we want people to succeed in society, we should give them opportunities to practice the skills that society values. They should learn to set goals, make plans, build tools, measure progress, communicate effectively, and contribute to others.
In some Scandinavian countries, the prison model focuses more on normalization and preparation for law-abiding living. Their goal is not only punishment. Their goal is to help people return to society better prepared to live responsibly.
We can learn from that approach.
I am not saying we ignore accountability.
Accountability matters.
But accountability should include more than suffering. It should include work. It should include growth. It should include a record of progress. It should include a pathway that allows a person to earn higher levels of liberty through merit.
Why Earned Freedom Matters
At Prison Professors, we use the phrase earned freedom because it represents the kind of reform we want to advance.
Earned freedom does not mean a person avoids consequences.
Earned freedom means a person works to build a record showing why he is worthy of greater trust.
That record may help with many stages of the journey, including:
Sentencing
Prison adjustment
First Step Act credits
Second Chance Act placement
Community confinement
Home confinement
Supervised release
Early termination of supervised release
Clemency
Employment
Family reunification
The principle is simple.
If society wants safer communities, we should want people in prison to work toward becoming law-abiding, contributing citizens. And if they do that work, the system should create incentives that recognize their progress.
That is how we move from punishment alone to preparation.
What Can a Person in Prison Do?
A person in prison cannot change the past.
He may not be able to change the system.
He may not be able to change public opinion.
But he can always work to change himself.
That is where the work begins.
When I served my sentence, I had to learn that lesson. I could not control the sentence. I could not control prison policies. I could not control what other people thought about me. But I could control how I used my time.
I could read.
I could write.
I could exercise.
I could build relationships.
I could learn from leaders.
I could create a plan.
I could document progress.
I could prepare for the day when I would return to society.
Those decisions changed my life.
I did not create those strategies on my own. Leaders taught me. I learned from people like Socrates, Frederick Douglass, Viktor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and others who went through hardship but still lived with purpose.
They taught me that a person can grow through adversity.
That lesson shaped my adjustment through 26 years in prison. It also shaped the work we do at Prison Professors.
The Five Outcomes
Through my own experience, and through working with thousands of people after I returned to society, I have seen five outcomes that await people after prison:
Unemployment
Underemployment
Homelessness
More problems with the law
Success
No one should expect success to happen by accident.
A person who wants to succeed must prepare intentionally.
That means defining success. It means creating a plan. It means setting priorities. It means building tools, tactics, and resources. It means measuring progress. It means executing every day.
Those strategies worked for me. They can work for others.
But they require action.
A person cannot wait for the system to change. He cannot wait for staff members to care. He cannot wait for society to understand. He must begin building a record now.
The Profiles Platform
That is one reason we built the Profiles Platform.
The Profiles Platform gives people a way to memorialize their work. It helps them document the steps they are taking to prepare for success. It gives them a place to show their biography, journal entries, book reports, release plan, testimonials, and other evidence of growth.
Why does that matter?
Because stakeholders need evidence.
A judge may want to know what a person has done since sentencing.
A case manager may want to know whether a person has prepared for community placement.
A probation officer may want to know whether a person has built a strong plan.
An employer may want to know whether a person can communicate, show discipline, and contribute value.
A family member may want to see hope.
A policymaker may want data showing that people can change when given incentives to pursue excellence.
The profile becomes a living record.
It says:
I am not waiting for freedom.
I am preparing for it.
I am not asking people to ignore my past.
I am showing what I am doing today to build a better future.
That record can become an asset.
Build the Story That Persuades
If we want to improve the prison system, we need to build a story that persuades people who are not yet convinced.
That story should not begin with anger.
It should begin with outcomes.
We can say:
We all want safer communities.
We all want fewer victims.
We all want lower crime rates.
We all want people who leave prison to become law-abiding, contributing citizens.
Then we ask:
What kind of system is most likely to produce that result?
A system that warehouses people for years without incentives for growth?
Or a system that encourages people to learn, build, document, reconcile, and earn higher levels of liberty through merit?
When we frame the issue that way, we begin to reach a broader audience.
We are not asking society to care only about people in prison.
We are showing society that better prison outcomes serve everyone.
Families benefit.
Communities benefit.
Taxpayers benefit.
Employers benefit.
Public safety benefits.
That is the story we must build.
What Is Your Job?
If you are in prison, your job is not to expose the system.
Your job is to prepare for success.
That does not mean you ignore injustice. It means you focus your energy where it can produce the greatest return.
Ask yourself:
What can I do today to become a stronger candidate for higher levels of liberty?
What can I read?
What can I write?
What can I learn?
What plan can I build?
What relationship can I strengthen?
What record can I document?
What skill can I develop?
How can I show that I am working to reconcile with society?
Those questions lead to action.
And action leads to evidence.
When more people build evidence of growth, we strengthen the argument for reform. We show that people can change. We show that incentives matter. We show that earned freedom is not a slogan. It is a strategy.
The Role of Prison Professors
Prison Professors exists to help people prepare for success at every stage of the journey.
We create free books, courses, videos, audio lessons, and daily content. We design our resources for people before prison, during prison, and after prison. We also create resources for families, educators, defense attorneys, administrators, and others who want better outcomes.
Our mission is not to complain about the system.
Our mission is to build tools that help people grow inside the system.
We want people to become self-directed.
We want them to think differently.
We want them to prepare for the job market.
We want them to build communication skills.
We want them to understand personal responsibility.
We want them to document a record of growth that can advance self-advocacy.
We want them to become law-abiding, contributing citizens.
That is how we move the needle.
A Better Way Forward
We can continue measuring justice by time alone.
Or we can build a better system.
We can continue sending people into prison and hoping they come home better.
Or we can create incentives that encourage them to become better.
We can continue accepting high rates of failure.
Or we can ask what works.
The answer begins with personal responsibility. It begins with a person deciding that he will no longer be defined only by the worst decisions of his life. It begins with daily work. It begins with a commitment to prepare for success, even if the system does not make that path easy.
That is the message I want to share.
Do not spend all of your energy trying to expose the prison system.
Spend your energy building a record that proves what is possible.
If enough people do that, we create the evidence that can change the system.
We create a movement.
We show that people can earn freedom through merit.
We show that preparation leads to better outcomes.
We show that society does not have to choose between accountability and hope. We can have both.
I am Michael Santos, founder of Prison Professors.
I believe in you.
Self-Directed Reflection Question: What record are you building today that will show others you are preparing to live as a law-abiding, contributing citizen worthy of greater trust?