3. Build Your Case for Liberty

In this workbook I’ll share adjustment strategies I learned from others. They empowered me through difficult times, and I’m confident that you can use those same strategies to prepare for greater success tomorrow.

During my sentence, I organized my preparation around three priorities:

1. Educating myself,
2. Contributing to society in meaningful and measurable ways, and
3. Building a support network.

I learned that approach from people who had faced hardship and overcome difficult problems. Their examples taught me to visualize the outcome I wanted, develop a plan, and put that plan into action. At Prison Professors, we call that approach the CEO mindset, and we’ll cover that idea in future chapters.

Keeping a record of daily activities connected that long-term strategy to the work I completed along the way. It helped me explain how I used my time and what I hoped to do after release. The degrees, books, and relationships developed over years of effort. Together, they gave people something concrete to examine when considering whether to offer their support.

We encourage you to build a free profile on Prison Professors for the same practical reason. Your profile gives you a place to introduce yourself, explain your goals, and document the incremental steps you take to recalibrate. Basically, your profile includes four components, which you’ll develop over time:

1. A biography introduces your background, values, and goals.
2. Journals describe your decisions, experiences, and progress.
3. Book reports explain what you learn and how you apply those lessons.
4. A release plan connects your preparation to the responsibilities you expect to face.

Together, these sections help you tell the story of your response to adversity and the person you are working to become. You’ll get more insight into the profiles component of our program in the appendix of this book, or by visiting our website.

The self-directed questions in this workbook can help you begin developing your profile. Consider writing your responses as journal entries. Explain an idea in your own words, connect it to your circumstances, and describe the steps you choose to take. Return later to write about what followed, what you learned, and how your thinking developed.

Over time, readers can follow your choices and form their own impressions of your preparation. The record you built will become a time-stamped accounting of how you’ve worked to redeem yourself and prepare for success.

Your attorney can review that record and decide whether and how to use relevant material. Later, you may draw upon it when advocating for yourself with case managers, wardens, probation officers, or others who make decisions that affect your life.

You may also use your profile when approaching a prospective employer or seeking support for your plans.

A profile gives those readers more to consider than what prosecutors or probation officers wrote about you. Your efforts might inspire others who read about how you responded to a difficult predicament, how you accepted responsibilities, set goals, and recalibrated after a personal adversity.

Each entry in your profile contributes to that larger account. You decide what to write, what to emphasize, and how to explain your choices. Consider how those decisions may influence the opportunities you hope to pursue.

In my profile, I wrote about the crimes I committed as a young man and what I learned from the experience. I wrote about the steps I took to earn university degrees and to become an author. Those strategies helped me to build a coalition of support, and through that support, I succeeded in writing the next chapter of my life. The incremental actions gave substance to what I wrote.

My history isn’t nearly as important as the predicament that is going on in your life right now. We encourage you to write the next chapter. Write about what you’re learning, and how you’re organizing responsibilities while your case moves forward. The more you prepare, the more opportunities will open.

If you have access to PrisonProfessors.org, participate in our interactive webinars. They explain how to use the website and find free resources that connect with your needs. I respond to questions on how to use the website and get the most value from our resources. Our courses, educational materials, and question-and-answer tools help you continue learning between sessions.

We wrote this edition of our Playbook for people entering the system so they can begin preparing earlier. If you have internet access, you can use the website alongside this workbook. If you are in pretrial detention, the pages that follow can help you begin developing your comprehensive mitigation strategy with the resources available to you.

Our purpose is to help you understand the journey ahead, and provide free resources you may use to prepare campaigns that may lead to a better outcome.

Best wishes to you.

Respectfully,

Michael Santos