progressive prison ministries
White Collar Support Group 300th Meeting Reflection – Tony T., FCI Morgantown.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Tony T. is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
_________________________
I am currently sitting at FCI Morgantown, a prison camp in West Virginia, finishing a 41 month sentence for wire fraud.
When I first found out I was being investigated, I was literally frightened beyond words. What was going to happen, what would happen to my family, my kids, my life. After finding Jeff and the White Collar Support Group, I first watched and listened, and then fully joined in. ALL the things I learned about my next few years of my life, what will happen next, what to do, what to ask and what to expect, I learned through the group. Not only did this group become my community, it’s members became my family.
I am now 97 days from finishing my journey and was told today that because of the First Step Act, I will go straight to probation. I never thought I could get through this process and, without the group, I don’t know if I could have. I am so grateful.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Podcast: Jeff Grant on the Energy Stoners Cafe with Toni Quest, Jan. 21, 2022
Attorney and minister, Jeff Grant, is this week’s guest on the Energy Stoners(TM) Cafe Podcast. He discusses his journey from successful lawyer, to opioid addiction, to convicted felon to minister. Jeff is now the founder of prisonist.org, the world’s first ministry serving the white collar crime community. After years of recovery and self-discovery and ministry, Jeff Grant is finally reinstated as a lawyer and continues his ministry. His story is truly enlightening and inspiring.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/energy-stoners-cafe-podcast/id1498166333?i=1000548596074
Listen on Player FM:
https://player.fm/series/energy-stoners-cafe-podcast/worlds-first-ministry-serving-the-white-collar-crime-community-guest-jeff-grant-host-toni-quest
Guest: Jeff Grant:
Rev. Jeff Grant, Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc./White Collar Support Group, Rev. PO Box 1, Woodbury, CT 06798-0001, (212) 859-3512, [email protected], prisonist.org
Jeff Grant, Esq., GrantLaw PLLC, 43 West 43rd Street, Suite 108, New York, NY 10038-7424, (212) 859-3512, [email protected], grantlaw.com
Host: [email protected]
Energy Stoners (TM) Cafe podcast is the intellectual property of Toni Quest and James H. Brooks, producers
White Collar Support Group 300th Meeting Reflection – Jessica L., Massachusetts. Please join us March 14th.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Jessica L. is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
_________________________
When I received a target letter from the United States Government stating that I was under investigation and would soon be indicted on federal felony charges of blah blah blah (read terrifying)- I crumbled. Thankfully I had my own office at work, because I was in the fetal position under my desk, sobbing.
I remained in the fetal position in one form or another – until I found Jeff’s group: White Collar Support Group. When I first found it after fervently googling desperate pleas like “help me not go to federal prison,” I was leery. I had already contacted prison consultants who appeared first in the searches. These people wanted thousands of dollars that I didn’t have. They told me I would surely receive a conviction of years and needed their help to receive the best sentence possible.
Progressive Prison Ministries was different. At my first meeting Jeff kindly welcomed me, introduced men and women who had been in my shoes, or were strongly standing in them with me. I wasn’t alone anymore. My daily crying sessions ceased. I started to think clearly again. The group was pivotal in helping me put things into perspective. I listened, and began to trust members who said “no matter what happens, it will not be as bad as you imagine it will be”.
I remain in the midst of my case, but I am not suicidal now. I have my head held high and I will walk through the next months and years with grace. I know this group will support me, and non-judgmentally be there for me. The fear is lessening, and for the first time in 3 years since this nightmare began, I feel a glimmer of hope. – Jessica L., Massachusetts
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
White Collar Support Group Blog: Prison Advice That Works Outside of Prison For Your Own Life, by Fellow Traveler Craig Stanland
Craig is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings.
_________________________
By Craig Stanland, Reprinted from Medium, Jan. 21, 2022
I’m a member of a white-collar support group that meets every Monday night on Zoom.
The group has been instrumental in my journey, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.
We have people on the call at pretty much every point in their justice journey.
From just indicted to being out of the system for over 20 years.
This is just one aspect of the group that makes it so powerful.
Multiple perspectives.
When one of our members is set to report to prison, we’ll dedicate the call to them and share our collective wisdom so we can prepare them as much as possible.
There is one piece of advice that stands out amongst the rest:
For the first couple of weeks in prison, be an observer.
Nothing more.
If a group of inmates is sitting next to you trying to come up with the name of the movie starring Russell Crowe set in ancient Rome, do not, as badly as you want to, interject with the answer.
Sit and observe.
Observe the inmates, decipher who’s a trouble maker and who’s not.
Observe the CO’s, decipher who seems to treat the inmates with a modicum of respect, and who to steer clear of.
Observe the unwritten rules of prison life so you can navigate your time as smoothly as possible.
Observe.
It took going to prison and being a part of the support group to understand that this piece of advice is not just for prison.
It’s for each and every one of us and the lives we’re living.
It’s too easy for our lives to be set on autopilot, to get so wrapped up with egotistical things, careers, money, cars.
The millions of little acts we do every day/week/month/year to keep our lives moving forward.
We don’t get into the habit of standing back and observing our lives and inquiring,
“Am I fulfilled?”
“Is something missing?”
“Is what I’m doing serving me?”
In order to create the lives we want to create, we need to understand the lives we’re living.
We do this by stepping out of the rushing river and observing the river.
Try to be an observer in your own life; you might surprise yourself.
_________________________
My new book, “Blank Canvas, How I Reinvented My Life After Prison” is now available on Amazon.
I wrote this book from my heart, and I gave it everything I had.
My dream, my goal for this book is that it helps one person — the one person who feels right now how I once felt.
I’d be honored if you checked it out.
National Memo: Who Should Run America’s Federal Prison System? An Ex-Offender, by Fellow Traveler Chandra Bozelko, Jan. 16, 2022
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Award winning journalist Chandra Bozelko is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets on Zoom on Monday evenings. I am updating my resume in case her idea develops any traction. – Jeff
_________________________
The search is on for a new director of the federal Bureau of Prisons after Michael Carvajal announced on January 5 that he’s retiring from his appointed post and will leave when the Department of Justice finds his replacement.
The Biden Administration needs to replace Carvajal with a person who knows prisons inside and out: someone who’s been incarcerated before.
When President Joe Biden announced his first round of cabinet picks just weeks after being elected in 2020, then Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said: “When Joe asked me to be his running mate, he told me about his commitment to making sure we selected a cabinet that looks like America – that reflects the very best of our nation.”
It’s not clear that the Biden administration looks like the America that so many of us occupy.
Five years ago, researchers estimated that about three percent of the country – and 15 percent of Black men in the United States — have spent time in prison. Eight percent of the country and a third of Black men had felony convictions. Dr. Sarah Shannon, a sociologist who led the study, limited the data to the year 2010. Incarceration peaked in 2008 and reached its lowest level since 1995 last summer, according to a 2021 study by the Pew Research Center. Decarceration has added many more people to these totals since that 2010 snapshot; I think it’s much higher than the “20 million” number that gets appended to discussions of hiring people with criminal records.
So this part of America looks like it’s growing — and isn’t well reflected in the employee pool that staffs the Biden administration.
Some structural barriers prevent potential applicants with criminal records from filling federal posts, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Former President Barack Obama signed an executive order to turn the practice of allowing ex-felons to work in federal government into a formal regulation. At least three people with criminal histories worked in the Obama administration, mostly toward the end of his second term.
If the White House had remained in Democratic hands in 2016, even more former incarcerees might have found their way into federal employment — but Obama’s successor erased much of that progress. The Trump campaign hired people with criminal backgrounds but not the Trump administration. Trump’s team actually wanted to expand the disqualifying criteria for federal employment to include having charges that were disposed through a pretrial diversion program. They wanted to exclude people who didn’t have a felony conviction record with an even harsher criterion: Merely a brush with the criminal legal system would have served as cause for rescinding a job offer.
Biden said he hopes he’s the polar opposite of Trump; one way to prove that would be to embrace the Beltway adage that “personnel is policy” — coined in a 2016 op-ed by Ronald Reagan’s Director of Personnel, Scott Faulkner — and rewind the reputation he’s earning for himself that he doesn’t care about doing better by the 157,596 men and women penned in the country’s 122 federal correctional facilities as of January 13.
While he promised to phase out reliance on private prison management companies early on (a vow some advocates question), Biden hasn’t made any commutations or pardons. In December, the White House ordered an “expedited clemency screening program for drug offenders with less than four years left on their sentences” but it hasn’t reorganized the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Biden lost some support in the reform community when he rebuffed a request from the National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls to commute the sentences of 100 women in his first 100 days.
While Trump touts the First Step Act as the pinnacle of reform, Biden’s Department of Justice has slow-walked its implementation. People restricted to home confinement could have completed their sentences years ago if the Department of Justice had applied the law’s signature “Earned Time Credits” to their sentences when they earned them. Instead, Attorney General Merrick Garland finally ordered it done the week of January 10, 2022, taking over a year to do what could have been accomplished very quickly.
The director of the Bureau of Prisons isn’t a Cabinet member per se. The office is filled by the attorney general and doesn’t require Senate approval – an aspect of the job that may change if a House bill introduced January 13 requiring confirmation hearings and a Senate vote to install a new director is made law.
Even though the Bureau of Prisons remains the only Justice Department agency whose head doesn’t require a Senate vetting, the choice is important to the entire tenor of an administration. Carvajal’s short stint mirrors the president he served; certain prisoners hoarded large sums of money in their inmate accounts and dodged financial obligations and a certain lawlessness pervaded federal prisons, which had nothing to do with the people convicted of federal crimes. A 2021 Associated Press investigation found more than 100 correctional employees have been arrested and/or convicted of crimes since 2019. It was a lapse significant enough for Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) to call for Carvajal’s ouster in November 2021.
Naming a director who has a rap sheet would leave very few critics of Biden’s commitment to reform. Of course, this proposal will inevitably invite accusations that the Biden administration is allowing the inmates to run the asylum — as if that’s necessarily worse than who’s running it now.
But, surprisingly, it seems that even the most fervent reform advocates fall just short of saying that the new director should be a formerly incarcerated person.
The same National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls that sought to free at least 100 women a year ago, released a statement on January 12 and an open letter to President Biden asking for a director who has “a deep understanding of the causes of mass incarceration and a track record of combating institutional racism in keeping with this Administration’s oft-stated — but rarely seen — commitment to racial justice… [and is] committed to decarceration of people who should not be in prison: the elderly, ill, survivors of domestic violence, and long-timers.”
The National Council did not return a request for comment on whether that “deep understanding” really means someone who lived deep inside a cell. Neither did representatives from Just Leadership USA, an organization that trains formerly incarcerated people for leadership positions. [Disclosure: I was one of JustLeadership’s “Leading with Conviction” Fellows in 2018.]
I’m not suggesting that someone slinging meth on a corner because his criminal record locks him out of legitimate employment should slide into Carvajal’s seat. More than enough former prisoners are qualified to do his former job. Among the millions of people who’ve re-entered society, there are two MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant award winners (1, 2), one of whom made Time Magazine’s 2019 Top 100 list, as well as law professors, elected officials, business pioneers, non-profit founders, authors, journalists, and artists who have accomplished more than other people who’ve never walked the line.
It won’t be some rough-riding abolitionist either who would deliver a surprise — or even illegal — exodus from federal pens; I don’t think an abolitionist would take the position. And that highlights the real risk of carving out Carvajal’s job for someone who’s been through the criminal legal system. It’s not a dearth of talent or responsibility; it just may be that none of them really wants the job of managing people confined to the same spaces they once were.
But if called, one of us should serve, even if only for a short period. To be the first person to leave one door of a prison and walk in another would too much of a revolution to ignore. And this president and his Department of Justice should kick it off by picking someone with lived experience to lead the federal government’s prison system.
Chandra Bozelko did time in a maximum-security facility in Connecticut. While inside she became the first incarcerated person with a regular byline in a publication outside of the facility. Her “Prison Diaries” column ran in The New Haven Independent, and she later established a blog under the same name that earned several professional awards. Her columns will now appear regularly in The National Memo.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Guest Lecture: Jeff Grant to Speak at BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway, Weds., Feb. 23, 2022, 9 am ET, 3 pm CET
Big thanks to Professor Petter Gottschalk for inviting me to speak at the BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway on Weds., Feb 23rd, 9 am ET, 6 pm CET. This is all virtual, of course – details to come.
In 2021, Petter wrote a treatise titled, Trusted White-Collar Offenders: Global Case Studies of Crimes of Convenience, that features case studies of some of our White Collar Support Group members, including Jacqueline Polverari and myself. Petter’s book is available on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Trusted-White-Collar-Offenders-Studies-Convenience/dp/3030738612.
“This book uses global case studies of white-collar crime to examine offenders in top business positions and their motives. Drawing on the theory of convenience, this book opens up new perspectives of white-collar offenders in terms of their financial motives, their professional opportunities, and their personal willingness for deviant behaviour. It focusses on three groups of privileged individuals who have abused their positions for economic gain: people who occupied the position of chair of the board, people who were chief executive officers, and female offenders in top positions, and the related white-collar crimes. Convenience themes are identified in each case using the structural model for convenience theory. The case studies are from Denmark, Germany, Japan, Moldova, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. This book speaks to those interested in white-collar crime, criminal justice, policing, organizational behaviour and business administration.”
About Petter Gottschalk:
Petter Gottschalk is a Professor Emeritus – Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at the BI Norwegian Business School at its Institute for Leadership and Organizational Management.[1]
He is educated Diplom-Kaufmann from Berlin Institute of Technology, Master of Science from Dartmouth College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Doctor of Business Administration from Henley Management College and Brunel University.
Gottschalk has previously been CEO of Norwegian Computing Center, ABB Datakabel, Statens kantiner and Norsk Informasjonsteknologi (NIT).
In recent years, Gottschalk has done research on the police and their use of IT. He has also done much research on knowledge management, and he has published a number of books on that subject, as well as books about the police. He has also worked as an advisor to the police. His research on the police and their use of information technology has resulted in his appearance in the news media when this topic has been in the news. Gottschalk also researches crime as seen from the police perspective, in particular organized crime and financial crime. In recent years, he has published many articles as well as a number of books in English about organized crime, financial crime and criminal entrepreneurship. Gottschalk was an active participant in the Norwegian public discourse about EU’s Dataa Retention Directive in 2010 expressing his opinion that the police ought to make better use of the sources they already have.
About Jeff Grant:
After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison (2006 – 07) for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001 when he was lawyer, Jeff started his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, majoring in Social Ethics. After graduating from divinity school, Jeff was called to serve at an inner city church in Bridgeport, CT as Associate Minister and Director of Prison Ministries. He then co-founded Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. (Greenwich, CT), the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community.
On May 5, 2021, Jeff’s law license was reinstated by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Jeff is once again in private practice and is committed to using his legal expertise and life experience to benefit others. He provides a broad range of legal services in a highly attentive, personalized manner. They include private general counsel, white collar crisis management to individuals and families, services to family-owned and closely-held businesses, plus support to special situation and pro bono clients. He practices in New York and in authorized Federal matters, and works with local co-counsel to represent clients throughout country.
Jeff Grant full bio: https://grantlaw.com/bio
Save the Date: White Collar Support Group 300th Meeting — Online on Zoom. Monday, March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 6 pm CT, 5 pm MT, 4 pm PT
Save the Date: White Collar Support Group — 300th Meeting Online on Zoom. Monday, March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 6 pm CT, 5 pm MT, 4 pm PT. Open to directly justice impacted only. Referrals welcome.
_________________________
Dear Fellow Travelers,
Progressive Prison Ministries and St. Joseph’s Mission Church invite you to join our Confidential Online White Collar Support Group. We hold our group meetings on Monday evenings, 7 pm ET. 6 pm CT, 5 pm MT, 4 pm PT.
We are doing something truly groundbreaking! This is the world’s first Confidential Online White Collar Support Group. As this support group is run by ordained clergy as part of a program of pastoral care and confession, we expect and believe it falls under clergy privilege laws.
We are a community of individuals, families and groups with white collar justice issues who have a desire to take responsibility for our actions and the wreckage we caused, make amends, and move forward in new way of life centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance and empathy. Our experience shows us that many of us are suffering in silence with shame, remorse, and deep regret. Many of us have been stigmatized by our own families, friends and communities, and the business community. Our goal is to learn and evolve into a new spiritual way of life and to reach out in service to others. This is an important thing we are doing!
Over 400 Fellow Travelers have participated in our support group meetings from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin — and Canada, South America, Europe and the Caribbean. All have agreed this has been a valuable, important experience in which everyone feels less alone, and gratified in the opportunity to talk about things in a safe space only we could understand.
We have formed agreements as to confidentiality, anonymity and civility, and have a basic agenda for each meeting:
1. Welcome
2. Serenity Prayer:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
3. Short Member Introductions, if we have new member(s)
4. Announcements & Resource Sharing
5. Guest Speaker and/or Lead on Topic
6. Member Sharing
7. Closing
Login Instructions and Link are sent out weekly. We have set up an account with Zoom for our group, and you can log in via video on a computer, tablet or smart phone that is equipped with a camera, or audio only via phone. Please use headphones if you can so that we can minimize feedback and background noise. Each meeting will have a different meeting number to best provide confidentiality.
For Newcomers, I (or the night’s host) will be online fifteen minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting. Zoom works wonderfully, however, it might take a little time to get comfortable with on your end if you’ve never been on this platform.
Thank you for referring other justice-impacted people and families: [email protected]. Fellow Traveler volunteers handle information requests and intakes with empathy and compassion.
Email for Trulincs/Corrlinks: [email protected].
Press & media inquiries: [email protected]. A Fellow Traveler volunteer who is a public relations professional handles these inquiries.
If you have suggestions for other Fellow Travelers to join this group, please contact us to discuss. Our goal is to be inclusive.
IMPORTANT!: If you are currently on supervised release, probation or parole, it is important that you first discuss this with your P.O. To assist in this regard, information about our ministry is available on prisonist.org.
Please feel free to contact us if you would like to join in our next meeting, or with any questions you might have regarding this group, its meetings, or anything else whatsoever.
For more information: [email protected]
Media inquiries: [email protected]
White Collar Support Group: My Holiday Message, from Jeff Grant
Dear Fellow Travelers,
Each year I send out a holiday message to our members. This year, it has been very difficult to find the right words.
For the past couple of months, I have been overwhelmed with gratitude and wonder, mixed with ample doses of fear and anxiety. So I entered a period of contemplation, reflection, and discernment. And as I emerge to start the new year, the spirit has compelled me to send you a very personal message.
My gratitude runs so deep for all the blessings that have been given to us. It seems impossible that we, whose lives have been brought to the brink, would have much to be grateful for. And yet, I’m sure that’s the way it works. I know I couldn’t be truly grateful until I had lost everything, and then had the opportunity to start my life anew.
My new life has been a gift, no longer shackled by the chains of trauma from my dysfunctional childhood family and from other people’s expectations; I bought into it all, even though deep down inside I knew it wasn’t right for me. That it was killing me. The crushing weight of materialism, pieces of me being cleaved off bit by bit, year by year, allowing things to get more and more complicated. Eventually, I was on autopilot, doing whatever I had to do to maintain that unsustainable trajectory and to survive. Ignoring the consequences. Or, more likely, encouraging the consequences. Until I couldn’t do it any longer and I just wanted the madness to stop.
So I threw a hand grenade into my life and dove on it. It mortally wounded me, and the wreckage to my family and all I held dear was unimaginable. Like the tornadoes we see on television all too often these days, the vestiges of my life were here one minute and gone the next.
And yet, what I didn’t know is that God and nature perform miracles every day. Today’s wildfire is tomorrow’s meadow, teeming with life and possibilities. Little microbes feeding new ecosystems that grow into new and different forests. It’s been like that since the beginning of time. But, in our fear and arrogance, we think we can control things, that it is our fault, that we will never recover.
One day, when I was feeling most afraid and most alone, I reached out to another person who was going through a journey similar to mine. Or, at least I thought he might be. At the time there was no information available anywhere. Nothing online, nothing anywhere. Vapor. But I risked it and made that phone call. And we shared our pain, our suffering, our loss.
They say that pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth, and for me that has certainly turned out to be true. But what I’ve learned is that there is a difference between struggling and suffering. Struggling is a good thing, an important thing, a necessary thing. It has helped me learn, and grow, and evolve into the person God intended me to be.
But suffering is optional.
And yet, I choose to suffer almost every day. Sometimes for a few moments, sometimes it goes on for hours. But when I remember that suffering is a choice, when I turn to God and to others to share my pain, my suffering subsides.
We founded our support group in May 2016, and this Monday night will celebrate our 289th meeting, in the midst of a period in which the world celebrates the holidays. We, a rag-tag group of misfits, the discarded, the broken. A gang of people who by all rights should not be able to celebrate anything. And yet, we thrive.
289 meetings. We thrive.
So, at least for me, at a time in the world and in my life when it would be so easy to focus on my wounds, instead I am choosing to focus on my blessings. What other choice to I really have if I want to thrive? And at the top of my list of my blessings is you. The miracle of us, and what we have found in one another. Brothers, sisters, a community, a family.
In the glow of this light, I wish and pray for you and your loved ones to have a happy and healthy Christmastime, no matter what your faith or religion. Please reach out to me or to one another if you are in need, or if you sense that someone else is in need. We will answer the call.
As for me, I’m always in need. At least a little.