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Milton
"Mickey" Burglass
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For over 30 years, Thresholds
in Delaware County has been teaching a six-step decision-making
process to interested inmates in Delaware County's prisons.
Thresholds was originally developed by Milton "Mickey"Burglass
while he was incarcerated in a Louisiana prison in the
mid-1960s. While teaching literacy to his fellow
inmates, Burglass observed that many inmates had great
difficulty solving problems and making personal decisions.
This inability affected all aspects of their lives and
often led to arrest and incarceration. He also
found that these inmates learned to read more quickly
if they were taught decision-making skills. The
acquired decisional skills allowed them to decide
how to pronounce a word rather than be intimidated by
guessing wrongly.
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After Burglass' release he attended Harvard University where,
for his doctorate, he formalized his decision-making process
into the highly successful program known as Thresholds. He
founded his own organization called Correctional Solutions,
Inc. and helped to establish the first Thresholds in Bucks
County, Pennsylvania in 1972.
In the fall
of 1973 in nearby Delaware County, members of a group called
the Delaware County Justice Coalition began meeting. It was
their hope to make some public statement about the need to
improve conditions at the Delaware County Prison, which had
been receiving negative attention in the press. The group
had a difficult time determining its mission but knew they
were seeking greater citizen involvement in and awareness
of the criminal justice system.
They learned
about the Thresholds program in Bucks County and invited Dr.
Burglass to make a presentation in their community. Not only
did they invite concerned citizens, but also the county's
judges, commissioners and prison board representatives. As
a result, the Delaware County Prison Board approved the expansion
of the Thresholds program into the Delaware County Prison
the following month. Volunteers were then recruited and trained
and a grant was received to cover the initial operating expenses.
Thresholds in
Delaware County has been operating ever since. We have trained
countless volunteers over the years and graduated hundreds
of clients from our decision-making program. While Dr. Burglass
is no longer formally associated with Thresholds, he says
it will always be a part of him:
"There
is no greater teacher than the jailhouse. I wouldn't want
to go back for a hundred million dollars, but I wouldn't
trade my years in prison for all the money in the world.
If I hadn't gone to prison, I would have lived in one of
my own making for the rest of my life. To remain a human
being in the midst of this is the toughest task anyone ever
undertakes. If feel for people who have never had the good
fortune to hit bottom, as a result of their own doing, and
recreate themselves from the dust.
All the things
I have, and all I do, came with the realization that I could
decide about my life. I'm still intoxicated with the thought
that I am unique, important and irreplaceable, and that
I have the power to decide. The deepest level of what it
means to decide, and not to react, is that you are not a
bit player in someone else's movie...not just a passenger,
but an active participant...hooked up to something that
has no beginning and no end...part of the process..able
to create the future.
Thresholds
came out of my experience in the jail, but I don't want
to own it. It belongs to you; not from me but through me,
and through you as a teacher, so that finding life can happen
to others as it did to me. The way to say 'thank you' is
to pass it on." - Dr. Milton Earl Burglass.
The Thresholds
program teaches a six-step decision-making
model. We use symbols for each of the six steps to help
our clients remember them. Additionally, Dr. Burglass developed
a unique Thresholds Symbol, or logo,
for the program.
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