price-190how i do love this story! an essay in the sunday new york times profiles a program where convicted criminals are granted probation in exchange for full participation in six twice-monthly seminars on literature. the offenders, along with judges, probation officers, an english professor, and a graduate student discuss fiction, memoirs, and poems, finding universal questions and important life lessons in the pages of the books they are assigned.

the program, changing lives through literature, is now in nine states and boasts a recidivism rate of less than 20 percent. the website offers advice on how to start your own program, texts to use, even lesson plans. i really like the fact that judges and probation officers read the books, attend the meetings, and join the conversation. in some ways this program reminds of inside-out, where we take our classes into prisons and university students and inmates share perspectives and learn the material of a college course together. it’s an amazing experience and really speaks to the transformative power of education and open minds.

i’m working on building literacy programs for adult men and their children at the oregon state penitentiary, and for young women in oregon’s primary juvenile correctional facility for girls. i’ve applied for grants and been promised funding from different sources to get the projects rolling, but have felt stymied in my struggles to fight through the bureaucracy and the inertia and get buy-in from potential participants.

the essay in the times reminds me that it’s worth it. words have power. stories have power. shared experiences bring very different people together. it’s worth the effort to bring literature into the lives of offenders. it may even open whole new worlds for them.