The Guidance Center Of The Adult Authority

Relatives and friends should know about the constructive nature of the prison program. Their kindness and loyalty to the man are important. Cheerful personal visits are very helpful. Encouraging and hopeful letters keep up the man's spirit. On the contrary it is very inadvisable for relatives or friends to write him of troubles at home about which he is powerless to do anything, or to harp continually and unreasonably on the unfortunate effects of his crime. Nothing is accomplished thereby except his unhappiness. This may seriously interfere with his progress toward self-improvement and success on parole and thereafter.

Mr. Richard A. McGee, the Director of Corrections, and Messrs. Walter A. Gordon, Lewis Drucker, and Ervis W. Lester, the members of thc Adult Authority of California, are sincerely interested in the future welfare of men sent to prison. The public is also concerned because practically all of these men are to return to society.

This little booklet, which has been illustrated by a talented inmate, gives you an idea of the methods of study of the men in the Guidance Center(") of the Adult Authority. They spend their first two months there. The programs for the man in the institution and on parole are strongly influenced by the recommdations of the Guidance Center staff.

This pictorial account of its work was compiled by the staff of the Guidance Center. They and the personnel of the California Institution for Men, Folsom and San Quentin State prisons, and of the State Parole Office, need the helpful cooperation of relatives and friends in their efforts to further the man's well being in prison and, of course, his satisfactory adjustment when he returns to society.

NORMAN FENTON

April 22, 1945