The Therapeutic Community (TC) Program represents an effective, highly structured environment with defined boundaries, both moral and ethical. The primary goal is to foster personal growth. This is accomplished by reshaping an individual’s behavior and attitudes through the inmate’s community working together to help themselves and each other, restoring self-confidence, and preparing them for their re-integration into their families and friends as productive members of the community.
Patterned after Daytop TC, New York which is the base of the Therapeutic Community movement in the world, the BuCor TC program was adopted as part of the Bureau’s holistic approach towards inmate rehabilitation. It is implemented primarily but not limited to drug dependents.
The TC approach has been continuously proven worldwide as an effective treatment and rehabilitation modality among drug dependents, and has been noted to be effective in many prisons. By immersing a drug offender in the TC environment, he learns why he had developed his destructive habits, which led him to substance abuse. The program modifies negative behavior and or attitudes while restoring self-confidence, and prepares inmates for their re-integration into their families and friends as productive members of the community. This behavioral modification program gradually re-shapes or re-structures the inmate within a family-like environment, wherein every member acts as his brother’s keeper.
As TC family members go on with their daily activities, a strong sense of responsibility and concern for each other’s welfare are developed. They are constantly being monitored for their progress and are regularly being evaluated by the TC-trained staff. The TC Process allows for genuine introspection, cultivation of self-worth, and positive rationalization that move the individual towards assuming a greater sense of personal and moral responsibility.
The efforts of the Bureau of Corrections to rehabilitate Drug dependents under its care using the TC approach are in line with its commitment to creating a Drug-Free Prison. Worldwide developments in the treatment and rehabilitation of drug offenders using this therapeutic community approach have been noted to be effective in many prisons.