BE OUR VOICE OUT THERE DOC!
TELL 'EM WE AIN'T ANIMALS
“We have the tools, we have the knowledge and the understanding to teach ex-offenders to not return to prison. We are not implementing what we know works. We must do this, to prevent these men from victimizing others, and to save their lives”.
(Khalil Peterkin, former Clinical Supervisor: Criminal Thinking Treatment Program at Sussex Correctional Institution)
(Khalil Peterkin, former Clinical Supervisor: Criminal Thinking Treatment Program at Sussex Correctional Institution)
WHY WAS DR. MORSE IN PRISON?
In 2014, I was convicted of felony child endangerment and spent two years in prison. I lost my temper with my step daughter during a time I was taking Interferon and Riboviron for hepatitis C. They cause a bipolar like condition. I was wrongly angry she had thrown up on herself and abruptly and forcefully washed the vomit off her. Fortunately she was not injured but she was terrified. The media falsely portrayed this as waterboarding her. Fortunately the jury who heard the case did not agree. Nor was any evidence of waterboarding presented at trial, but the false accusations still persist on the Internet.
My single act of anger has tarnished a life time of service helping others, particularly children and grieving parents. I have worked hard to repair my relationship with my step daughter, have apologized, paid my debt to society, and am proud that now she lets me play with and hold her daughter. Her daughter calls me "grandpa".
In 2014, I was convicted of felony child endangerment and spent two years in prison. I lost my temper with my step daughter during a time I was taking Interferon and Riboviron for hepatitis C. They cause a bipolar like condition. I was wrongly angry she had thrown up on herself and abruptly and forcefully washed the vomit off her. Fortunately she was not injured but she was terrified. The media falsely portrayed this as waterboarding her. Fortunately the jury who heard the case did not agree. Nor was any evidence of waterboarding presented at trial, but the false accusations still persist on the Internet.
My single act of anger has tarnished a life time of service helping others, particularly children and grieving parents. I have worked hard to repair my relationship with my step daughter, have apologized, paid my debt to society, and am proud that now she lets me play with and hold her daughter. Her daughter calls me "grandpa".
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In this interview I discuss what I did do, the media frenzy of false allegations of waterboarding, and how the jury got it right.
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Click on picture to read an article Dr. Morse wrote after his release on his work with his fellow inmates
WHO ARE WE LOCKING UP?
The ugly secret is that the great majority of these men are not sociopaths, rapists or murderers. They are men who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, drug addiction, and/or undiagnosed and untreated mental illness.
Please click here and read the real stories behind the men we lock up.
Please click here and read the real stories behind the men we lock up.
AN INTERVIEW WITH KHALIL PETERKIN
Listen to his description of the work Dr. Morse did with his fellow inmates at Sussex Correction Instutition.(Click Here)
Read a hardened criminal's story of how he was going to take his own life, then learned to remote view and meditate. (click here for typed version, and here for letter in his handwriting)
He concludes his story with these words:
He concludes his story with these words:
I am happy again. I am no longer a danger to myself or anyone else and have completely gotten off of my depression meds. I recommend to anyone with doubt of the next or the last life, sit still and fully experience this one. We are so much more than just people. We are magical, spiritual beings, that are created to live, to laugh, to love, and to share all of ourselves with the whole Universe.
THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF MEDITATION:
READ HERE HOW IT TRANSFORMED THE LIFE OF A CAREER CRIMINAL:
(TYPED VERSION) OR (VERSION IN HIS OWN HANDWRITING)
"“I WANT TO SHARE WITH EVERYONE WHAT WAS SHARED WITH ME. SEARCH FOR A MAINSTAY AND ALL THE INNER QUALITIES YOU CAN FIND”
An inmate speaking to Dr. Morse as he was being released from SCI urged him to tell the world that these men are not animals. The great majority of them are not sociopaths and do not have anti-social personalities. They are potentially productive citizens capable of redemption if only given the proper tools. For example, there are so many veterans with PTSD in prison that they often have separate cell blocks for them.
They need mind training, be it in the form of meditation or the skill building tools commonly taught to business executives; this is just as important as housing and a job. We underestimate that these men long for a return to wholeness, for a connection with the divine.
Click here to read my blog post on the power of listening. Learn just one of the many lessons of love I learned from hardened criminals and drug addicts. Do you have difficult people in your life? Learn how I resolved my conflicts with a young man who openly hated me.
(Dozens of men asked Dr. Morse to be their voices when he returned to the community. Our society is wasting valuable and potential productive men who are currently being warehoused in prisons at a cost of $38,000 a year per man. In this era of mass incarceration, our society needs to connect with these men on a spiritual and transformative level so that they can return as productive members of society. He personally witnessed and even facilitated the transformation of addicts and violent felons through meditation and mind training techniques. Click here for a journal article on two men to whom he taught yoga)
They need mind training, be it in the form of meditation or the skill building tools commonly taught to business executives; this is just as important as housing and a job. We underestimate that these men long for a return to wholeness, for a connection with the divine.
Click here to read my blog post on the power of listening. Learn just one of the many lessons of love I learned from hardened criminals and drug addicts. Do you have difficult people in your life? Learn how I resolved my conflicts with a young man who openly hated me.
(Dozens of men asked Dr. Morse to be their voices when he returned to the community. Our society is wasting valuable and potential productive men who are currently being warehoused in prisons at a cost of $38,000 a year per man. In this era of mass incarceration, our society needs to connect with these men on a spiritual and transformative level so that they can return as productive members of society. He personally witnessed and even facilitated the transformation of addicts and violent felons through meditation and mind training techniques. Click here for a journal article on two men to whom he taught yoga)
OUR SOCIETY HAS A PROBLEM WITH MASS RE-INCARCERATION
An astonishing 70% of prisoners return to prison within five years. This is called recidivism. Since most criminals are not sociopaths, rapists or murderers, but rather drug addicts, veterans with PTSD, alcoholics, the undiagnosed mentally ill, and uneducated and often illiterate people with no skills to get a non criminal job, we are locking up a lot of people who could otherwise be tax paying citizens.
WHAT IS THE RECIDIVISM PREVENTION GROUP?
Unlocking the transformative power of the near death experience through meditation. and other therapeutic solutions for addiction and ex-offenders.
Using the scientific research on near death experiences as a counseling tool for grief counseling and to transform lives.
The Recidivism Prevention Group was founded by Melvin L Morse MD and Khalil Peterkin MS. Dr. Morse was an inmate at Sussex Correctional Institution for two years. Khalil Peterkin was the Director of Therapeutic Services for the Key Program for Addiction and Criminal Thinking, also at SCI. They spent a year together. Both men discovered that the key to prevent recidivism comes from unlocking the power of spiritual transformation, which is within each of us, even the most severe violent felons, addicts, and other criminals. We both witnessed humbling transformations of the men, simply by working with them with regards to meditation, particularly the practice of tonglen. Tonglen is an ancient Tibetan practice in which the person meditates on the suffering others. It is a powerful tool to unlock the inherent link to the divine that each of us has within. What is unique about the practice of tonglen as we practiced it in prison is that we meditated specifically on the suffering we caused others, and replaced that with compassion.
Unlocking the transformative power of the near death experience through meditation. and other therapeutic solutions for addiction and ex-offenders.
Using the scientific research on near death experiences as a counseling tool for grief counseling and to transform lives.
The Recidivism Prevention Group was founded by Melvin L Morse MD and Khalil Peterkin MS. Dr. Morse was an inmate at Sussex Correctional Institution for two years. Khalil Peterkin was the Director of Therapeutic Services for the Key Program for Addiction and Criminal Thinking, also at SCI. They spent a year together. Both men discovered that the key to prevent recidivism comes from unlocking the power of spiritual transformation, which is within each of us, even the most severe violent felons, addicts, and other criminals. We both witnessed humbling transformations of the men, simply by working with them with regards to meditation, particularly the practice of tonglen. Tonglen is an ancient Tibetan practice in which the person meditates on the suffering others. It is a powerful tool to unlock the inherent link to the divine that each of us has within. What is unique about the practice of tonglen as we practiced it in prison is that we meditated specifically on the suffering we caused others, and replaced that with compassion.
Tonglen is more of an art than an exact science. It's more like poetry or finger painting. You find your way by using your heart - Pema Chodron
IS ADDICTION A LEARNING DISORDER?
The path to transformation involves first visualizing the person you want to be. Then having the skills to become that person. By framing addiction as a learning disorder, we emphasize that often addicts have never developed coping strategies and character building skills because of traumatic, shattered and/or dysfunctional childhoods. Mind training simply means learning the skills needed for transformation.
The "addiction as a disease" model was needed to change the story that addiction is a moral failing and addicts are degenerates unworthy of our compassion or help. However, it is clear that treating addiction as a disease is not working. The success rates of treatment programs are no better than doing nothing as about 15% of addicts stop using on their own given enough time. For example, many Vietnam vets were addicted to heroin yet spontaneously stopped using upon return home. Similarly rodent models of addiction demonstrate that when mice are placed in highly stimulating social situations with fun mouse activities, they stop using morphine.
The criminals and addicts Dr. Morse met did not just have bad childhoods, they often had shattered childhoods. With his middle class white background, he had no idea that such things happened in America. However too often this leads us to feel sorry for them, instead of recognizing that a shattered childhood results in the poor to nonexistence development of social and problem solving skills. Click here to read more.
Many addicts start as teenagers. Since the teen years are developmentally the time we develop our fundamental approach to navigating the necessary tasks to be a functional adult and contributing member of society, addicts again miss out on neccessary mind training opportunities as they are often high all the time.
Addicts need mind training, meaning the simple skills most us learned by being in youth organizations, playing on sports teams, having functional parents who made us do chores, learning to delay gratitification as toddlers, and the ability to share and so forth. As Roger Fulghum said: Everything I really needed to know I learned in kindergarden. Career criminals and addicts often missed out on most of that learning.
So don't feel sorry for criminals and addicts (liberals) or treat them as if they are unworthy and/or uninterested in redemption (conservatives). "Lock em up" doesn't work as a long term solution as they will eventually get out. Instead we need to treat addiction and the resultant criminal behavior as a learning disorder. For a great article on this by The Daily Beast, click here. Specifically we teach gratitude training, meditation techniques, yoga, and decision making and organization methods all of which can result in remarkable transformations.
The criminals and addicts Dr. Morse met did not just have bad childhoods, they often had shattered childhoods. With his middle class white background, he had no idea that such things happened in America. However too often this leads us to feel sorry for them, instead of recognizing that a shattered childhood results in the poor to nonexistence development of social and problem solving skills. Click here to read more.
Many addicts start as teenagers. Since the teen years are developmentally the time we develop our fundamental approach to navigating the necessary tasks to be a functional adult and contributing member of society, addicts again miss out on neccessary mind training opportunities as they are often high all the time.
Addicts need mind training, meaning the simple skills most us learned by being in youth organizations, playing on sports teams, having functional parents who made us do chores, learning to delay gratitification as toddlers, and the ability to share and so forth. As Roger Fulghum said: Everything I really needed to know I learned in kindergarden. Career criminals and addicts often missed out on most of that learning.
So don't feel sorry for criminals and addicts (liberals) or treat them as if they are unworthy and/or uninterested in redemption (conservatives). "Lock em up" doesn't work as a long term solution as they will eventually get out. Instead we need to treat addiction and the resultant criminal behavior as a learning disorder. For a great article on this by The Daily Beast, click here. Specifically we teach gratitude training, meditation techniques, yoga, and decision making and organization methods all of which can result in remarkable transformations.
100% OF PROCEEDS GO TO THE RECIDIVISM PREVENTION GROUP
PLEASE DONATE GENEROUSLY YOUR DONATION WILL PREVENT MEN FROM RETURNING TO PRISON. CLICK HERE FOR AN ARTICLE DR. MORSE WROTE IN A MEDICAL JOURNAL ON HOW YOGA AND MEDITATION CAN HELP TREAT HEROIN ADDICTION
PLEASE DONATE GENEROUSLY YOUR DONATION WILL PREVENT MEN FROM RETURNING TO PRISON. CLICK HERE FOR AN ARTICLE DR. MORSE WROTE IN A MEDICAL JOURNAL ON HOW YOGA AND MEDITATION CAN HELP TREAT HEROIN ADDICTION
This is the official website for Melvin L Morse MD for the near death experiences of children, grief counselor, bereavement, controlled remote viewing and tonglen.