“Disgraced” Aitken to head prison reform research run the headlines in the media and surely in this one sentence is precisely the reason why prisoners or those who commit misdemeanours find it so difficult to be rebilitated successfully into our society.  For Profumo it took a lifetime; forever “disgraced” and unforgiven however many good works are carried out after the event.

If we continue to judge and label people for the crime or weakness they committed many years earlier, for which they have paid their rightful penance, what hope is there for them to move on and reinvent themselves as someone who can behave well and be a useful part of society?  This is precisely the prejudice prisoners face and the reason why prison is so seldom a successful means of rehabilitation.  Prejudice drives society’s perceptions of offenders and this in turn drives their own perceptions of themselves resulting in insufficient confidence or esteem to hack it in the world outside prison.  I hold no torch for Aitken but certainly believe that he should be judged for who he is today, not who he was 8 or more years ago, and for prison reform is it not better to seek the opinion of someone who has ‘inside’ knowledge?

The problem of other people’s stuck perceptions is just as relevant to anyone going through personal change.  Colleagues, family and friends frequently wish to label you and see you as who you were rather than who you are today, let alone who you are seeking to become in future.  This is why so many change programmes fail: habitual perceptions, habitual behaviours, however constructive or unconstructive, are what others have become used to and so it is often easier to hold a person into old patterns and block their progress rather than face the discomfort of change.  Very often it is those nearest and dearest to you who hold you back as they are threatened by what you might become and how it will affect them personally.  But equally it can be people who have never met you or know of you rather than know you who refuse to open their eyes to the fact that people can and do learn and change as they go through life. 

How difficult it seems to be for humans to truly and wholeheartedly support another person’s transformation.  Yet it is often when people make mistakes that they learn their hardest but most useful lessons in life and often experience a kind of epiphany.  We only need to look at the lives of saints and great people to see that frequently the early part of their story was a difficult one.  Look back at your own life and consider whether you have not learnt some wisdom over the last ten years?  Would you wish to be labelled for some misdemeanour you committed years ago?

Whether a prisoner or not people need the support of others in order to successfully change behaviour.  They also need to learn skills both cognitive and behavioural in order to become the person they want to be: it is unlikely to happen without.    Why don’t we open up our eyes to see the potential of what someone could become rather than seeing them as some kind of outdated and faded image of a person they once were?  Until we do this we shall continue to have the problems we have in our society with both juveniles and adults reoffending because people respond to how we treat them.  There is plenty of research to demonstrate that when someone is treated as successful they become successful.  It is for this reason that a coach can support individual and organisational change through constant reinforcement of the new and constructive behaviours that lead to future success.  See www.http://www.positiveworks.com/coaching/executive.htm