The Way to Happiness Association Helps Reform Inmates

The Way to Happiness Association of Tennessee has long helped people by spreading calm through The Way to Happiness booklet.

The American Jail Association (AJA) Convention recently wrapped up. It was a time for those who work directly with inmates to have a chance to discover the latest technology available to them. One program that pleasantly surprised most of the convention attendees was a program aimed at helping inmates learn skills so they can lead a better life on the outside. It’s called The Way to Happiness. 

“There is no person alive who cannot make a new beginning,” wrote L. Ron Hubbard, author of the common sense guide to better living The Way to Happiness. Since it was first written in the early 1980s, the book has sparked a movement and has been reprinted and passed hand to hand to a wide variety of cultures and peoples.
 

Criminon, a program which means “no crime,” has been delivering courses and workshops to inmates and to clients and staff involved in the correctional system in the United States since 1989 and one of its key components is The Way to Happiness book.

The AJA 38^th annual conference and jail expo took place in Louisville, Kentucky this year. It is the only national event that focuses exclusively on local jails and detention facilities.

The Tennessee chapters of The Way to Happiness Association along with Criminon Tennessee were glad to make the trip to share what they had with jail representatives from across the nation.

“This is exactly what we’re looking for. I need this for our inmates,” said one conference attendee from Washington State when she saw The Way to Happiness and heard what it’s all about.

“It’s important for us to share resources with those who need them,” said Rev. Brian Fesler, regional coordinator for The Way to Happiness in the Southeast Region of the United States.

In Tennessee, The Way to Happiness Association works with communities and neighborhoods to spread the booklet to as many people as possible. Organizers say that when the booklet is passed from hand to hand, it is like oil spread upon a raging sea, the calm flows outward and outward.

“This book spreads a calmness that is unparalleled by anything else. It contains common sense moral messages that anyone can agree with and apply,” says Rev. Fesler.

The Way to Happiness booklet details 21 precepts predicated on the fact that one’s survival depends on the survival of others. According to thewaytohappiness.org, “This code of conduct can be followed by anyone, of any race, color or creed and works to restore the bonds that unite humankind.” The Way to Happiness aims at giving people back a sense of what is right and wrong in a way that is easy to understand. In the three decades since it was authored, some 80 million copies of the book passed hand to hand.

For more information, visit thewaytohappiness.org.