For some individuals, escaping a culture of crime can be almost impossible. But an innovative sentencing program out of the Roxbury District Court is helping offenders get back on track
By Ed Burns
The group gathered in Jean Flanagan's literature class is not your typical collection of students. The class is not located in a typical school room. And the students are here for much different reasons than average students their age.
The class is meeting in the Roxbury District Court as part of the Changing Lives Through Literature program, which is an alternative sentencing program that offers offenders the chance to participate in a literature course in exchange for shortened probation. All of the students have committed crimes and are participating in the program as part of their sentence.
Flanagan teaches the class in Roxbury, but since its inception in 1991 in New Bedford the program has spread five other states and the United Kingdom.
Tonight the class, which is made up of mostly young people in their early 20s, is reading "Shiloh" by Bobby Anne Mason. It is the story of a failing relationship, and it is one the students relate to.
Initially the discussion is slow, but when Flanagan brings up the marijuana use of one the story's characters more students get involved. They share their own experiences with the negative effects of the drug. They talk about the harm they've seen it do.
And this is exactly the point of the class.
Tamlin Neville, an administrator and teacher with the program said the students, who are mostly minorities from urban areas, don't generally have the kind of outlet where they can talk about their problems and feelings. This class provides them that arena.
"The students get just as much out of the community of the class as from the books," said Neville. "I don't think they get a chance where they can just talk about their story in an adult setting."
The program is built around the supposition that this kind of engagement with a work of literature can make offenders see their problems in new light. This new perspective can allow them to see other options in life, Neville said.
"They come in feeling that life has railroaded them into certain closed boxes," she said. "But [the class] just opens up their world and makes them see and feel they have choices."
As discussion of the story winds down Flanagan has a writing assignment for the class. "Write about joy," she says. At first the open-ended prompt registers only blank stares, but as the students realize that what they write about is up to them, they get to work.
In the sharing of responses that follows, some have written about their children, others about being off probation. Most mention their family and some talk about being employed. But the thread that runs through each response is change. Joy for each of the students is an aspect of their life that is in some way different.
According Jack McGrimley, a probation officer at the Roxbury District Court, many of the offenders who go through the program are making the changes they want in their lives.
"I will see them less than if they didn't go through the class," said McGrimley. "I very rarely see them back because people are engaging the system rather than fighting it."
This is one of the reasons why the program claims to be so important. On the Changing Lives Through Literature website the program boasts a statistic saying that the recidivism rate for students in the program is less than half that of a comparison group.
Flanagan said this is because the class turns probation into a positive thing rather than something purely punitive. "Reading keeps them out of trouble," she said. "It's not always that they become this great student, I just hope that they get a love for literature."
McGrimley spoke of one student who came through the program that was also a local college student. He said that this person wasn't necessarily their best student, but was good for the class because he brought a different perspective.
"It just showed them that anyone can get in a jam," McGrimley said.
Just before the class ends Flanagan has the students write about one thing they would change in their lives. Nearly everyone says something about their past or their arrest. "We just keep making mistakes," one of the students says. "Well we all make mistakes," Flanagan tells him.
But she says the key is learn from them.
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