otwithstanding the one million Americans now in state and federal prisons, "There is no real reason," declared L. Ron Hubbard, "why the criminal cannot be detected and also reformed." Although the earliest employment of LRH technology for criminal rehabilitation came with the publication of Dianetics in 1950, it was actually two years later that the first formal program commenced. A fairly modest venture, funded from LRH lecture fees, it was manned by members of London’s Hubbard Association of Scientologists and aimed at the rehabilitation of English juvenile delinquents. By 1954, a similarly intentioned program had been launched in California’s Folsom Prison, and the stage was effectively set for the founding of Criminon (without crime) and the introduction of The Way to Happiness directly into the prison system.
Inspired by the extraordinary success of LRH technology in the rehabilitation of inmates – particularly drug addicts – at an Arizona state prison, Criminon officially opened in New Zealand in 1967. By the end of a decade, the program had become a truly international movement; while today Criminon provides LRH technologies and The Way to Happiness in some three hundred United States prisons to the benefit of thousands of inmates, as well as prisons in Canada, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Poland and Sweden.
In addition to LRH tools for ethics and The Way to Happiness Extension Course to help inmates with the application of the twenty-one precepts, the typical Criminon curriculum includes: The LRH Learning Improvement Course for increased study skills, the Ups and Downs Life Course to help the inmate from slipping back into criminality upon his release from prison, and the Communication and Perception Course to help him face life rather than withdraw from it – the very act that originally precipitated the criminal condition. The Criminon program is served by a volunteer pool of more than a hundred course instructors, some working directly with inmates, particularly juveniles, while others administer correspondence courses. Needless to say, the program does not condone the all too prevalent use of psychiatric drugs or the equally destructive aversion therapy.
