What if the system isn’t broken? What if it’s working exactly as it was designed to?
In the criminal justice and mental health worlds, there’s a confronting reality that’s rarely spoken about: it is more profitable to keep people in cycles of dysfunction than it is to help them heal.
Reoffending generates repeat business. A diagnosis often means lifetime management. Entire industries — from private prisons to pharmaceutical giants — rely on you staying stuck. And they thrive while individuals and families are left suffering in cycles that could have been broken.
If recovery, healing, and transformation were the real goals, we’d be pouring resources into preventative brain-based approaches. But we’re not. Why? Because healed people don’t keep the system running.
The Profitable Cycle of Reoffending and Diagnosis
Incarceration is big business. In the United States, the private prison industry generates billions of dollars annually and often operates under contracts that incentivize higher incarceration rates (ACLU, 2021). In Australia, private operators such as Serco and GEO Group have significantly expanded their footprint in the correctional sector, raising concerns over the prioritization of profits over rehabilitation (Ryan & Sim, 2017).
Similarly, in the mental health sector, there’s a growing trend toward long-term management rather than recovery. A study published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics found that long-term antidepressant use often continues without clear benefit, pointing to a trend of dependency rather than recovery (Olfson et al., 2016).
These industries profit from return customers. And that raises a critical question: is anyone truly invested in helping you get better?
Transformation Is a Threat to the System
When individuals heal, transform, and reclaim agency over their lives, they become unpredictable — and unprofitable. The system prefers people who are compliant, labeled, and manageable.
Neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to rewire itself through intentional practice and learning — is a revolutionary scientific discovery. It proves that people are not fixed in their trauma, habits, or identity. But this potential threatens industries that profit from long-term treatment models.
Preventative approaches like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), trauma-informed coaching, and neuroscience-based mentoring aren’t mainstream — not because they’re ineffective, but because they don’t generate ongoing revenue for large systems.
We Know What Works — But We Don’t Fund It
Restorative justice initiatives, mentoring-based rehabilitation programs, and neuroscience-informed interventions have all shown powerful results in reducing recidivism and supporting long-term change (Latimer, Dowden, & Muise, 2005). But these models are not widely implemented.
Why? Because healed people don’t need to come back. And systems built around recurring funding streams can’t afford that kind of success.
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
At Practice Makes Permanent, we believe the system has it backwards.
We’re not here to manage your problems — we’re here to help you reprogram your potential. Using neuroscience-informed coaching, trauma-responsive mentoring, and practical tools grounded in real human transformation, we work with individuals to break free from cycles of punishment, pathology, and powerlessness.
Our programs aren’t built around symptoms — they’re built around people. Real change takes consistent practice. And when you rewire your brain and your habits, those changes become permanent.
Join the Movement: Make Your Change Permanent
You are not broken. You are wired — and you can rewire.
It’s time to walk away from systems that profit off your pain and step into a new model — one that puts healing, growth, and agency at the center. At Practice Makes Permanent, we are creating a movement of people who refuse to be defined by their worst day, their diagnosis, or a cycle they didn’t choose.
If you’re ready to transform your story — not manage it — then this is your invitation.
Join us. Practice what changes you. And make that change permanent.
References
ACLU. (2021). Banking on bondage: Private prisons and mass incarceration. American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.aclu.org
Latimer, J., Dowden, C., & Muise, D. (2005). The effectiveness of restorative justice practices: A meta-analysis. The Prison Journal, 85(2), 127–144. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885505276969
Olfson, M., Blanco, C., Wang, S., Laje, G., & Correll, C. U. (2016). National trends in the mental health care of children, adolescents, and adults by office-based physicians. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 85(6), 359–361. https://doi.org/10.1159/000448812
Ryan, M., & Sim, J. (2017). Campaigning for and against prisons: Excavating the terrain of prison abolitionism. In Y. Jewkes, B. Crewe, & J. Bennett (Eds.), Handbook on prisons (2nd ed., pp. 671–687). Routledge.