While sitting on the bench for the United States Supreme Court’s 1928 session, Justice Brandeis wrote:

”Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subject to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by it’s example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration criminal law the ends justify the means — to declare that [a] Government [official] may commit crimes in order to [advance a political party’s agenda] — would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should set its face.” Olmsted v. United States, (U.S. 1928), 227 U.S. 438, 485, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944.

Renew Foundation USA, Inc. has been created and designed to find and utilize a solution to reduce crime through the process of rehabilitating ‘prisoners of law’ instead of just warehousing and institutionalizing them.  Institutionalization results in an incarcerated individual becoming dependent on others for the carrying out of routines needed for maintaining a sense of self-awareness and goal actualization.  This process reinforces maladaptive behavior and creates new pathological or bizarre symptoms where long-term incarcerated individuals tend to show apathy, inactivity, stereotypical responses, and the inability to deal with new situations; thus, ending with a high probability of recidivism. Research has shown that the opposite effect results from teaching an incarcerated individual how to overcome problems without resulting back to the lifestyle choices that led to his or her incarceration.

To effectuate a solution to reduce crime in the rehabilitation of justice involved individuals, Renew Foundation USA, Inc., is planning to conduct research and create proactive programs that are geared toward meeting the challenges faced by individuals while they are incarcerated and throughout their release procedures.  Research and programs that address:

• Incarcerated Individual’s  physical conditions and restrictions of confinement with regards to overcrowding, furnishings, ventilation, heating, lighting, noise, dilapidation, fire protections, sanitation, educational programs, recreation, classification, work assignments, dietary needs, personal hygiene, disease and vermin control, physical and mental abuse from other peers and prison employees.

• Incarcerated Individual’s due process rights concerning disciplinary proceedings, administrative segregation placement, transfers, parole and temporary release, property and visitation restriction, and grievance procedures and results concerning conditions of confinement and employee misconduct. 

• Incarcerated Individuals access the courts, prison law library reference collections, legal services and interference and retaliation subjected upon an Incarcerated Individual for exercising such rights.

• Incarcerated Individual’s drug and alcohol treatment opportunities and medical, dental, and psychiatric care; as well as how State and Federal fiscal appropriations are being utilized by State and Federal Departments of Corrections in relation to Incarcerated Individuals health, safety, and physical and mental education.

It is the intention of Renew Foundation to publish this research to the public.