Seven male inmates from the Bedford County Corrections graduated from the Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT) program Saturday.  

The class is led by Lt. Chris Cook, who serves as programs director at the jail. In addition to teaching the female classes, Cook also piloted this program among the male inmates.  

Even though the program is the same for both the men and women, Cook said it was a bit tougher going through it with the guys. “It took longer to establish the trust,” said Cook.  

“With the females, there’s a 100% buy-in. They put everything into it. With the guys, there’s not that same emotional side. But as a guy, I understand.”  

The program is broken up into 16 steps and the goal is to get a person to question his or her own thinking, or “reconation.”  

“So, I’m really looking more for growth from the time they start to the time they end. I don’t expect the emotional side to be front and center,” said Cook.  

But it does come out from time to time—that’s just an effect of the MRT program, which makes inmates dive deeper into how they got into the situation they did.  

Cook recalled how one inmate told the whole class the first night of the program, “I don’t trust anybody. I don’t have any friends. And I don’t trust anybody in this room.”  

“It took him about four or five steps before he started to loosen up. By the end, he was a different person,” he said.  

He added, “Most of them started ‘getting it’ later than the females. For the guys, it seemed to be more impactful in the later steps.”  

According to jail administrator Ronald Prince, they began this program back in April after the Tennessee Corrections Institute approached them about piloting the MRT program at the first of the year. “And now here we are. They’ve made major steps in their lives, and I want to congratulate them.”  

One of the female MRT graduates, Amy, spoke about the program and how it’s impacted her life since her jail time ended.  

“The best time I ever had in my life were these 9 months in the Bedford County Jail, believe it or not,” she said. “I came in very miserable...I was so angry. But I was so lost.”  

“This program, I am so thankful for. But it is something you have to sit down in and look at everything in your life that you have done, and that people have done to you,” Amy said. “And you have to accept that because, in there, I didn’t have drugs to run to. I didn’t have mom to run to. All I had was God and these women in the MRT program.”  

Sheriff Austin Swing, who attended the graduation, said, “It’s our job here to try to get everybody on what we think is the right track to get back into society and become a contributor. That’s our hope and that’s what these guys’ plan is.”