There is a road back for lawbreakers
Paul Fauteck, age 17. He went to
federal prison at age 20.
By Gregory Lopes
Lerner Writer
It seemed Paul Fauteck would spend his life a recidivist, going from one prison to another. By the time he reached 14 years of age, he was having dreams of leading a gangster lifestyle. At 15, he stole a car; at 16, he robbed a pool hall. At age 20, he was caught smuggling a foreign national into the United States. These, and many other crimes, landed him in federal prison for his 21st through 24th birthdays.
“I figured out early on I couldn’t win” within the system, says Fauteck, 67, of Jefferson Park. “I made decisions to pursue criminal activities, to live at war with society.”
But after what he calls “nine years of craziness,” Fauteck discovered that he was fighting the war from the wrong side. He decided to end his disgruntled, anti- social existence and to live a respectable and scholarly life.
Blending the experiences of his criminal past with 13 years of work as a forensic psychologist for the Cook County Circuit Court, Fauteck has written his first book, “Going Straight: An Ex-Convict/Psychologist Tells Why and How” (Writers Club Press, 2001, ISBN 0-595-15570-7). The book is a guide for those in danger of choosing a criminal life as well as ex-convicts trying to live a normal life.
Dr. Robert Baker, a professor at the Adler School of Professional Psychology, 65 E. Wacker Place, Chicago, and supervisor of several different ex-offender groups, says that besides being a terrific book, it clearly reaches its intended audience. “I believe the book’s most useful part is that it gives practical, straightforward advice and strategies for turning a life around,” Baker says. “According to the people I’ve given it to, they have found it extremely useful as a day-to-day reference.”
“Going Straight” is filled with first-hand experiences that ex-convicts may run into during their post-prison life. In a chapter entitled “The Pitfalls,” Fauteck explains how people with criminal records are marked by society:
“You’re marked, but not condemned.” He explains several ways an ex-convict can be set-up to fail again, and how to beat that setup. For example, he tells the ex-con not to light up his criminal record in neon by doing drugs, drinking in public and hanging around with the wrong crowd. Instead, he advises the ex-con to “dress like a solid citizen and always renew a driver’s license.”
Joy Lynn Dawson has been with the Safer Foundation, 571 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, a rehabilitation organization for ex-convicts, for 30 years. She says Fauteck’s book is useful for counselors as well as offenders. It has a dual purpose, Dawson says, to remind counselors of the right techniques and to explain issues and problems criminals face.
Besides writing the book to help others stay out of trouble, Fauteck admits he also wrote the book to help himself. As he gets older, his past affects him more deeply. He talks about the burden his behavior had on others, from the taxpayers who had to pay to keep him in jail to his ex-wife and children. It has been a long journey to get where he is today, and the book and his work are affirmations of his remarkable journey as well as a payback to the society he abused 50 years ago.
“It’s quite a leap,” Fauteck says. “This is not done – not unheard of, (but) very uncommon. I felt it would be negligent on my part not to make use of it. I took a lot away from society, I have had a chance to give something back.”
Marlene K. Goodman is a professional cartoonist, who lives in Wheeling and did the cartoons in the book. She contends that the book is a way for Fauteck to repent for his past. “I imagine it’s (the book) for himself and others,” Goodman says. “He is closing the door on one aspect of his life and opening the door to another.”
Perhaps his life would have continued on the downward spiral of recidivism, except that in April 1959, while Fauteck was serving the final two years of a prison sentence in the Texarkana Correctional Institution, his father died. “I felt very badly about not spending more time with him and knowing the last contact he had with me was writing to me in prison,” he says. “When I walked out of jail and beyond the gates, I said I was never going to return.”
‘When
I walked out of jail and
beyond the gates, I said I was
never going to return.’
Paul Fauteck today
And thus began for Fauteck what would be a gradual and difficult road to a normal life and, later in his life, a clear conscience.
Many times returning to prison was only a “hair’s breadth away.” But, he says, intelligence along with some good luck kept him out of jail during those difficult early, years:
“I didn’t realize how deficient I was in my preparation to lead a normal life,” he says. “I didn’t realize how hard it was to be at peace with myself and with society.”
In his early 30s, after jobs in the radio and advertising industries, and consulting with a vocational psychologist, Fauteck decided to re-enter school and study psychology. He received his master’s degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago in September 1976 and a doctorate from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology in 1989.
After working as well as living in the system, Fauteck has become an advocate of increasing the number of rehabilitation programs in the criminal- justice system. “We’re spending too much money to keep people incarcerated,” he says. “We need to help the criminal understand himself better.”
A form of rehabilitation Fauteck believes would help criminals succeed in living normal lives is to have ex-convicts, like himself, mentor criminals in prison; not unlike having an alcoholic sponsor another alcoholic. He also would like to see more education programs and psychotherapy for inmates.
Fauteck will continue, he says, to pursue rehabilitation expansion along with writing more books. As he works to improve other peoples’ lives, he demurs about his own. “I like to believe that taking my life as a whole, the good I’ve done significantly outweighs the harm I’ve done, but still I wonder at times when I think back.”
Reproduced with permission of
