Protect Yourself and Your Organization from Ethics Breaches with the E.T.H.I.C.S. Toolkit Formula

about me

I am a speaker and mentor with a passion to help others improve their ethical decision-making skills.

I am also a consultant helping others who are about to enter prison to prepare for and navigate a very difficult time in their lives. Please read more about my consulting services on my Incarceration Consulting page.

About my blog

My Blog includes current writings of interest to my work as an ethics expert. But, the Blog also includes my diary when I was incarcerated at FCI Butner from August 16, 2011, until October 8, 2014.

During this time I had access to a closed inmate email system that I used to write my daily observations to my wife, Christine.

She saved all my emails with the intention of publishing them on butnerprisondiary.com, a blog that we established for this purpose. However, it soon became evident that I was writing about things that could have been very embarrassing to prison officials and, that had these things been told to the outside world, there was a real risk that the prison officials would exact retribution on me. For this reason, we decided to take the original blog down until I completed my supervised release in February 2017.

Accordingly, there is a post date and a diary date for each post if it was written while I was in prison. For simplicity’s sake, I start each diary post with the day it was written.

TELL US YOUR STOry

We realize there are a lot of visitors to this site that have their own stories, whether as a spouse or inmate, to tell about their experiences in different prisons and at different security levels.

Please share by sending me an email from the Contact Me page or by completing the form on the Tell Us Your Story page. You never know when your story will help someone else in preparing for, or presently experiencing, some level of incarceration.

My Comments Policy pertains any story that you submit here. Please read it before sending me your story.

Warning to All In-House Counsel and Compliance Officers

Everything Ethics Interviews Michael Clark

Monday, September 19th, 2011 |

I’ve been writing about how depressed and lonely I have been. That is only part of it – my mind has been racing with thoughts about how unjustly I have been treated. The blow-up at the case manager last week was really the last straw. I can’t believe how many negative thoughts I have been having. It is not just the last two weeks, but this has been going on since my case broke more than three years ago, that alone is a depressing thought!

I had an epiphany today. Here I am in solitary confinement with no one to talk to except the occasional guard to ask for an extra milk at meal time. This is like a silent retreat. After all, I am in a bare cell alone reading a lot of spiritual and religious things, and I have been silent (though the guys from DC are still constantly making an ungodly amount of noise). I would be paying a fortune on the outside to have the privilege of a silent retreat.

The point is that I need to re-frame this experience. Savor the opportunity to be lost in good thoughts. I have been practicing transcendental meditation since 1974 but I haven’t been meditating since I came to prison. That changes today! I will use my TM to re-frame my thoughts and re-center myself. I can do it. I’ve done it in the past and I can do it in here.

Epiphany!

Monday, September 19th, 2011 |

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