Recently, a resident leaving the East Mississippi Correctional Facility in Meridian, Mississippi shared his impressions of his time spent living at the facility, especially his participation in the pre-release program.

Kevin Moody said:

“For me, it’s been a really positive learning experience because of learned things about myself that I can take with me; not just in the short term, but these are life skills that I can use throughout my life.

We went into behavioral things: anger management, thinking errors. When it comes to what makes us think and feel the way that we do; whether it’s our environment that we grew up in or a mental-health issue, things like that. Various things go into what makes us up. Also, we dealt with money management, budgeting, credit, and finance. A lot of real helpful and practical things that we can put to use.

Ms. Poe has a really good heart for us, for the people in her program. Ms. Poe is the coordinator for our program, and she cares very deeply about us making a positive change, for this to be beneficial for us, to be productive members of society, once we re-enter society. She really cares. She’s shown that she cares, she puts a lot of time and effort into it, and she’s backed by good support.

Considering prison, I think that being placed in this program was by far the best possible place that I could’ve been imprisoned. It’s been a very good experience.”