Scott Marquardt, CEO of the Management and Training Corporation invited our team at Prison Professors to tour three prisons it operates in Texas. While there, Shon and I got to see first hand how leadership in the MTC organization invests in excellence.
Besides Scott, we met with Michael Bell, VP of Region III and Bernie Warner, Senior VP of Corrections. Together we toured a female prison and two prisons that hold male offenders. The executive leadership team introduced us to wardens of each prison, and they allowed us to interact with the people who were serving time.
Instead of extinguishing hope, Shon and I sensed real leadership from the MTC team. The motto at MTC is BIONIC: Believe it or not I care. From what we saw, the acronym is more than a platitude.
We visited classrooms and we spoke with people who worked on their prison job assignments. Wardens opened opportunities for us to make presentations. The people in prison could ask us questions, and we could respond to their questions openly. Rather than censorship, we had opportunities to speak in an open forum and in private.
While in the three separate prisons, we addressed more than 1,000 people. Without exception, the people expressed gratitude for the opportunities that MTC opened. As a private prison company, MTC could not influence release dates. But they could invest in programs that would prepare people for success. Rather than stifling innovation, the leadership at MTC encouraged people inside to pursue their highest potential.
We include some video clips below from a presentation that Shon and I made inside of a female prison.
Our team at Prison Professors will continue to work with prison administrators across the nation. We strive to improve outcomes of America’s prison system, and we’re grateful for every opportunity to contribute.
At Prison Professors, we encourage leaders to visualize the best possible outcome. We show people serving time how they can use time inside to prepare for success in prison and beyond.