Our communities are today faced with ever-higher rates of incarceration and recidivism. This dangerous combination forebodes growing crime and violence unless something effective is done to change our direction. Criminon International is working to accomplish that change in more than 1,600 prisons in 23 countries around the world.

All too frequently our children have grown up in gang, crime and drug-ridden cultures, and sending them to prison only reinforces the criminal behavior they learned on the streets. Criminon programs, however, provide a way for people to change and become productive, contributing adults. In other words, true rehabilitation of criminals is not only possible, but happening.

Criminon helps offenders and at-risk individuals in a variety of settings, ranging from on-site programs delivered by volunteers in juvenile halls to correspondence courses which reach even into the new super-maximum security (“supermax”) prisons. In all, approximately 7,000 offenders take Criminon courses each week.

Whether delivered in person or through the mail, the Criminon program consists of a series of courses which helps offenders understand the impact of influences in their environment, of the consequences of past choices and how to make better choices in the future. The program contains courses dealing with interpersonal issues such as negative influences and pressures which might encourage reversion to crime, and issues such as the consequences of drug use. But the key to the rehabilitation program and to the individual’s regaining of a sense of personal self-worth, is The Way to Happiness, a common-sense guide to better living. Offenders who study this non-religious moral code are then directed to apply it.