Second Chance Program

The Second Chance Program was established by Rick Pendery, a former real estate developer and veteran Scientologist. During the 1970s he worked for Narconon, a drug rehabilitation program linked with the Church of Scientology, eventually becoming executive director for the U.S.-wide organization. Pendery also worked in an official capacity for Criminon, a Scientology-related program for prisoners that is based on the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. In 1995 he established Second Chance, described as a "non-profit corporation that rehabilitates offenders in the criminal justice system" utilising Hubbard's methods. ==Establishments and proposed establishments==

Mexico Pendery unsuccessfully sought to open a Second Chance program in a U.S. prison, but succeeded in establishing the program in the state prison at Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico in 1995. The program was funded partly with his own money and partly with financial support from the Mexican government. Second Chance was publicized in the U.S. and elsewhere, attracting a series of visits by political dignitaries. The Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón was among these dignitaries, and the government of Guatemala was reported to be interested in the program. but the government rejected this idea; the cost of the program, at $15,000 a head, was regarded as prohibitive. Nevada Second Chance was promoted in Nevada by Assemblywoman Sharron Angle (R) from Reno. In February 2003 she proposed legislation to establish Second Chance for female prisoners and invited 35 legislators to accompany her on a trip to Ensenada to see the program in operation there. Angle had already twice visited Ensenada, once with a group of female legislators and later with Nevada Department of Corrections Director Jackie Crawford. She was impressed with the facility and sought to authorize a demonstration project in Nevada, supported by funding from the federal government. It emerged that the trip to Ensenada was being underwritten by Randall Suggs, an Arizona businessman and wealthy Scientologist who was later to play a major role in bankrolling Second Chance in New Mexico. 2010 United States Senate election controversy In 2010, Second Chance again became the subject of controversy in relation to that year's United States Senate election in Nevada. Angle's previous support for Second Chance was used in attack ads by Sue Lowden, her opponent for the Republican nomination, and by incumbent Senator Harry Reid (D). An advert by Lowden portrayed Second Chance as a cushy health spa with inmates wearing prison uniforms being tended to by attractive masseuses. The voiceover asserted that, "Career politician and Senate candidate Sharron Angle sponsored a bill that would have used tax dollars to give massages to prisoners." The same line of attack was used in a Reid ad: "That's Sharron Angle. First, a Scientology plan to give massages to prisoners. Now she wants to get rid of Medicare and Social Security. What's next?" During a KVBC-hosted debate on the program Face to Face with Jon Ralston, Angle was asked by host Jon Ralston "about recent whispers that an Angle legislative proposal to explore a program of massages and sweat-boxes for Nevada prisons was a strange foray into Scientology." Angle responded, "This program had a recidivism rate of less than ten percent. They aren't massages. ... it was more of a karate chop. The sauna was a sweat box. When you're in there with thirty guys it's not exactly a sauna." Angle also told the conservative newspaper Human Events that Second Chance was "not Scientology, but rather natural homeopathic medicine". (The program uses saunas and vitamin and mineral supplements, not homeopathy. Jurisdictions that sent inmates to Second Chance included Socorro, Grant, Taos and Sierra counties. Although the program had some support, mainly from rural parts of the state, it was controversial from the start. The program's unconventional methods, unwillingness to disclose its finances and ties to Scientology aroused controversy, Sheriff Darren White Bernalillo County told the Albuquerque Journal that he was "very, very skeptical" about Second Chance and would prefer the criminal justice system to "fund what we already know works." Second Chance was awarded only $600,000 in July 2008. An additional blow came when Brennan was forced to resign from his post as president of Second Chance after being charged with committing false imprisonment and battery on a household member. Investigation and termination In November 2008, state officials expressed concern that the program had become a "dumping ground" for prisoners from around the state, including those convicted of violent felonies. Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez (D) ordered an investigation to establish the status of the inmates and Second Chance was given a deadline in December 2008 to account for its inmates. The city's chief of police reported: The eight had been convicted of violent crimes; Dinelli commented that Second Chance appeared to be "deliberately deciding not to include those eight individuals. And to me failure to disclose is just as good as lying." It also emerged that Second Chance had violated its lease by building a large sauna inside the facility without permission. Second Chance's lease was terminated by the city a few days later. Mayor Chávez said: "They simply didn't live up to their end of the agreement", citing Second Chance's housing of violent inmates and the apparent attempt to cover this up. He accused the program of misleading city and state officials, saying: "This program has been based on misrepresentation and deceit, and, frankly, I can't see how that would be the basis for a good recovery program." He was strongly critical of Second Chance's attempt to "avoid our oversight, our scrutiny" and said: "It's very evident to me that they were attempting to avoid oversight by taxpayers. This is not going to be tolerated." The notice of termination also accused Second Chance of misusing its facility as a jail rather than as a substance abuse rehabilitation center. The program was terminated with effect from January 31, 2009, and the remaining twenty or so inmates were returned to their original jurisdictions. Second Chance made an unsuccessful last-minute appeal to legislators to save it from closure. By November 2008, it had received more than $1.5 million in public funding ==Corporate structure and links with Scientology==

The Second Chance program in Albuquerque was operated by two entities, against which tax liens were levied by the IRS and the state of New Mexico. The entities were Second Chance Program Inc., and Second Chance Center New Mexico LLC. Second Chance Program Inc. is a private nonprofit company while Second Chance Center is a private for-profit corporation. However, neither Second Chance's President Joy Westrum nor her husband, Executive Director Rick Pendery, have explained the roles or functions of the two entities. Its officials denied that it was based on Scientology. Joy Westrum said in 2007 that it was "utilizes a protocol that is based on the discoveries of Mr. Hubbard. Second Chance is a completely secular program." However, according to former and current Second Chance employees interviewed by the Albuquerque Journal, "everything that happens there is based in Scientology." Inmates and employees were required to go through courses and "ethics training" that were taken directly from Scientology; Scientology-related entities played a major role in operations at Second Chance; the program was predominately funded by wealthy Scientologist donors; and the program materials were taken directly from Narconon and Criminon, both run by Scientologists and classified by the IRS as "scientology-related entities". Several employees told the Journal that the program was merely a "front group" for Scientology. Mayor Chavéz commented: "It was always represented to us that this program was totally secular, but that some of it was based on L. Ron Hubbard's teachings ... If in fact what they were doing out there was teaching people directly out of L. Ron Hubbard's books, well, that just adds fuel to the fire." ==Methodology==

The Second Chance Program consists of five core modules, combining course materials from Criminon and Narconon, two other Scientology-related entities: • Drug Rehabilitation Module • Study Skills Module • Self Respect Module • Life Skills Module • Reintegration Module The first four modules are delivered in the facility, while the final Reintegration Module begins in the facility and continues after release. Each of the modules consists of a number of courses, as summarized below: Hubbard's book The Way to Happiness, David G. Bromley and Mitchell L. Bracey Jr. comment that "the concept of the misunderstood word ... has a central position within Scientology's teachings."p. 146 These principles were set out by Hubbard in "Barriers to Study", a Scientology publication issued in 1971. The British sociologist Roy Wallis comments that Study Technology forms a key element of Scientology indoctrination by "assist[ing] those who are slow in grasping the principles of the movement." Its underlying principle is that a failure to understand a text is due not to the text being faulty – such as it being nonsensical – but because the reader has failed to understand a word or concept. Thereby, Wallis notes, "the individual learns to doubt his own judgement; to locate some meaning in the undoubted mystification of much of Hubbard's writing; or to acquiesce to some half-comprehended and yet half-incomprehensible statement in the hope that all will be made clear to him at some later point." The extreme tedium of "word clearing" leads, in Wallis's view, to "a further suspension of the individual's critical faculty, or to its inhibition, and to the ready acceptance of Hubbard's formulations as intrinsically meaningful." The Way To Happiness is described by Joy Westrum of Second Chance as "a nonreligious moral code written by L. Ron Hubbard and based wholly on common sense." It forms the core of the Criminon program and is also used in Narconon – all clients receive a pamphlet of The Way to Happiness when they begin the program. It has been widely distributed by individual Scientologists and Scientology-related organizations. A campaign in the early 1990s to distribute the booklet in U.S. schools was described in Scientology publications as "the largest dissemination project in Scientology history" and "the bridge between broad society and Scientology." Criminon's Ups and Downs in Life course, which Second Chance uses, teaches the concept of "suppressive persons" and "potential trouble sources". These concepts come from Scientology. Ruth A. Tucker wrote that the concept appeared to have first been introduced into Scientology in the 1960s "as membership grew and as authoritarian control [by Hubbard] increased." Tucker notes that many of those who joined Scientology during this period were "well-educated people who prided themselves in independent thinking [who] struggled with the idea of allowing any other individual to completely dominate their opinions." Hubbard's definitions of the characteristics of "suppressive persons" were set out in Scientology works of the 1960s, notably his 1968 book Introduction to Scientology Ethics.p. 132 ==Claimed success rates and certifications==

An investigation in 2008 by Albuquerque station KRQE found that Second Chance had a success rate far below what was claimed. Although it claimed that only 10% of its graduates went on to reoffend, Second Chance's own figures obtained by KRQE showed that the recidivism rate was closer to 32%. Some of the failures were among Second Chance's own instructors, six of whom had subsequently been charged with offenses ranging from drug dealing to smuggling contraband into a jail. A study carried out by the UNM found that within 100 days of graduation, 8.6% of Second Chance graduates committed new crimes and 22.9% violated their probations. Officials in Curry County stated that thirteen inmates from the county had undergone the program but only three graduated, two of whom subsequently returned to jail.) and he is also on the advisory board of Narconon. UNM criminologist Paul Guerin, who carried out a study into Second Chance, was skeptical of the claims made by Paredes: "They need to drop this Mexican study. There's not a program ever that has produced those kinds of results." ==See also==