my inside-out class at the oregon state penitentiary this fall was an exercise in engaging in public criminology from the classroom. of course, i would argue that holding the class in a maximum-security prison already makes it a form of public criminology, but this quarter we took our efforts several steps further. along with reading two books, writing several essays, and getting to know students from the other side of the wall (inmates from the penitentiary and college students from oregon state university), the class developed a community service project and wrote letters to the editors of local newspapers.

the focus of the class was on delinquency prevention. i challenged the 31 students to work together to come up with group projects that they could implement in less than 10 weeks. it was a difficult process at times, but they ultimately did a great job. the most visible aspect of the project was a hygiene drive to collect new products (shampoo, toothbrushes, tooth paste, razors, deodorant, gloves, socks, etc.) for at risk and homeless teens. perhaps most impressive given their relative resources, inmates in the penitentiary donated nine boxes of new items they purchased at the prison canteen. we added more donations from prison staff, sociology faculty, and the osu football team; we also bought several more bags of products with money raised by the outside students. 10 of the outside students (in the photo) and i had a great time dropping off the donations at the HOME youth & resource center in salem.

along with the hygiene drive, students went through and painstakingly updated a resource guide for homeless teens. inmates from the class wrote anonymous letters to the at-risk youth, offering their stories and testimonials and encouraging the youth to make the best possible choices in their own lives. the class also created “truth and consequences” templates for table tents that offer facts about crime and sentencing, personal examples, and encouragement to young people; they sent the templates to local high schools in case they choose to use them in their lunchrooms.

finally, this sunday the salem statesman journal devoted most of the space on its opinion pages to our inside-out class, publishing an editorial about the class and our project; excerpts from eight inmates’ letters to the editor; and excerpts from four outside students’ letters to the editor. if you get a chance, check them out. you might be surprised what the guys inside have to add to a conversation about preventing delinquency or the impact of mandatory-minimum sentences.

all in all, i think it was a pretty successful quarter and a good example of bringing public criminology into — or, more accurately, out of — the classroom.

this one is personal for me.  philip scott cannon is one of the men i have been working with in my inside-out classes at the oregon state penitentiary.  last week, it was exactly 10 years since his arrest for three murders that took place on a stormy november night in oregon.  scott was convicted based on circumstantial evidence and ballistic evidence that since has been widely discredited (proclaimed “bad science”).  he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  scott has proclaimed his innocence all along; during his incarceration, he has become a thoughtful and influential leader in the penitentiary.  he is an invaluable asset to my inside-out courses, but i would much rather see him out in the community.

in the years after his trial and conviction, a lot has happened.  as reporter thom jensen explains:

Then there is the prosecution’s key witness, Bimla Boyd.

Boyd owned the property where the murders occurred. Two of the victims, Kinser and Osborne, were her personal caretakers.

Since the 1998 murders, two more people have died at Boyd’s home under suspicious circumstances. In 2001, her estranged husband, Charles Boyd, died from a drug overdose.Weeks later, Boyd turned up in a Marion County court with Charles Boyd’s Last Will and Testament, a document that awarded Bimla Boyd everything. The will was witnessed and signed by Boyd’s new caretaker, 54-year-old Robert Daniel Spencer.

In 2002, Spencer died in Boyd’s home from a single gunshot to the head. Boyd was arrested for the murder and pleaded guilty to manslaughter after convincing prosecutors she killed Spencer because he was molesting her 14-year-old daughter. Boyd could be released from prison as early as April 2009.

there’s more to the story, including a witness who casts doubt on bimla boyd’s story but who was never questioned by detectives and never had the opportunity to testify at the trial.  with this additional evidence and renewed attention on the case, scott is hoping for another chance.  as jensen reports:

Right now Scott Cannon is asking for what is called Post Conviction Relief. If the court grants his request, it could overturn his life sentence for a lack of evidence.

But for now, Oregon attorney general spokesman Jake Weigler said his office is sticking to the case against Scott Cannon.

“Before you let somebody out of jail, you want to make sure that they didn’t do it,” Weigler said.

Scott Cannon says he thought you were supposed to prove someone is guilty before you put them in prison.

please follow this link to read or watch the whole story for yourself.  and then let’s all hope for justice.

i posted a couple of days ago about the 8-year-old boy in arizona who is being charged with the premeditated murder of his father and another man. the case is generating plenty of press and discussion, but few people seem to be acknowledging that we saw a somewhat similar case in chicago a decade ago.

does anyone remember the case of ryan harris? the defendants in that case were two 7- and 8-year-old chicago boys. the police attained confessions from these two young boys for the muder of 11-year-old ryan harris who was killed while riding her bike in their neighborhood. the charges against the boys were finally dropped when semen was found in the victim’s underpants, and prosecutors were forced to acknowledge that it was unlikely boys so young could produce semen. so how much were those confessions really worth?

at the time, there were a lot of questions about the chicago boys’ confessions and how they were interrogated by police. while the police department denied misconduct or any wrongdoing, seven years later, the city of chicago settled wrongful arrest suits with the 7-year-old defendant for $2 million dollars, and with the 8-year-old defendant for $6.2 million.

it’s hard to imagine how much psychological damage such wrongful arrests and the ensuing publicity might cause. arizona police and prosecutors would be wise to think about the chicago case before placing too much weight on the confession of an 8-year-old child, attained by two female police officers without a parent or legal representative in the room.

seriously?  an 8-year-old boy in arizona has been charged with two counts of premeditated murder in the deaths of his father and another man.  i see all kinds of problems with this case — first, how do you prove intent and premeditation in one so young?  current research is suggesting that human brains aren’t fully developed until individuals are in their twenties, let alone double-digits.  can we really hold an 8-year-old fully responsible for this kind of crime?  second, police apparently questioned the boy without parents or legal representatives present.  assuming he did confess, how much is this confession worth?  wouldn’t anyone be terrified and overwhelmed under these terrible circumstances?  this case will be interesting to watch as it will test the boundaries of our beliefs about kids, crime, and the juvenile justice system.  stay tuned.

last week i was invited to attend a meeting of the 7^th step inmate club at the oregon state penitentiary. i spoke about education at an earlier meeting of the club last year and I was impressed with the sincerity of the men in attendance. the club’s mission is to reduce recidivism from the inside; as such, the members work hard to deal with their issues, to grow and to change, and to become better men.

last week’s meeting focused on victim impact and awareness, and the club had invited a representative from ‘parents with murdered children’ to speak. the speaker spoke of a crime that had taken place on the east coast – he was there to share his story, not point fingers at any individuals in the oregon prison. at the club president’s request, i brought a few carefully selected osu students along to witness the event, and, not quite knowing what to expect, we made our way into the visiting room to join the inmates in attendance.

i chose to sit with one of my inside students who i have known now for nearly two years. he is a sensitive soul and feels grief and deep remorse every day for the crime he committed when he was 16. i knew this would be difficult for him and i was impressed with the courage it must have taken him to attend and to face his demons so directly. we sat in the front row and as the speaker began telling the story of his son’s life, i could feel the pain wracking through the body of the young man sitting beside me. by the time the father finished describing the brutal murder of his son and the devastating impact on his family, my inside student was weeping.

after the father spoke – to an incredibly attentive and supportive audience – three different inmates stood up and told their stories. they each spoke articulately about how they had committed their crimes very young and how in the years that followed, they finally began to understand the full impact of their actions and how many people had been affected.

attending the meeting was a moving experience and i’ve been thinking a lot since then about empathy. i’m also reminded how quickly many, many lives can be destroyed. we’re ultimately pretty fragile beings. it takes years of hard work to build a career, a relationship, a home, but all of that can change in a moment with one very bad decision. and, as much as you might wish otherwise, you can never take it back.

i’ve been spending a lot of time in the oregon state penitentiary lately. i’m currently teaching my fifth inside-out class and it continues to be an inspiring, rejuvenating experience. it’s amazing how much good will can be generated in a tiny room on the fifth floor of a maximum-security prison where 15 oregon state university students come together with 15 (or so) inmates in order to learn and work together. the inmates in the group are men who are working hard to change their lives and to make their time behind bars meaningful. of the approximately 2300 men in the penitentiary, i’ve selected about 60 to participate in inside-out classes; as such, i’m well aware that i’ve worked with a skewed sample of the best citizens in the prison. we’ve received good press for the program and i’ve been singled out for some honors for my part in the process, but what i appreciate most is knowing that these classes have offered hope and motivation in a place where both can be very hard to find.

this quarter, we’re focusing again on the topic of preventing delinquency, and i’ve challenged the class try to figure out what action(s) they can take to make a difference. they’re trying to come up with small-scale projects that can be implemented relatively quickly and with no budget. a challenge, to be sure.

and so, i’ll offer my own small-scale project as an example. i applied for a “literacy grant” from a national program last year and did not get it. because i thought the idea was a good one, i pitched it to administrators at the penitentiary and they agreed to fund a pilot program (two inmate clubs are also providing funding). it’s a simple enough idea, but it just might make a difference: incarcerated fathers will have a chance to sign up to read the same books as their children. with help from the lifer’s club (and others), we’ll start with a volunteer group of fathers and their children. with help from local librarians and bookstores, i’ll choose age-appropriate, interesting books and give one to the father and one to the kid. reading the same book(s) will hopefully give them another chance to connect, another topic to discuss, whether it’s in person, on the phone, or via mail. the fathers are enthusiastic about the idea; presumably the kids who agree to participate will get on board if we choose good books.

simple, small-scale, do-able. i’m hoping this little program succeeds and grows. i don’t know if it will make a difference, but at least we’re trying to do good and we’re working to translate our good intentions into action.

if anyone has suggestions for the program, for projects for the inside-out students, or recommendations for interesting kid/teen books, i would love to hear them.

my summer inside-out class at the oregon state penitentiary ended last week. this was my fourth time teaching an inside-out class at osp and my second topic, so i was fortunate to get to work with a number of repeat inside (inmate) students who are deeply invested in the program. it was an interesting experience, bringing together 15 inmates and 15 college students and asking them to think hard and to think creatively about issues in crime and justice. the focus of this summer’s class was on preventing delinquency.

i challenged all of the students (in an intensive six-week course) to break up into small groups and to try to design small scale prevention programs for kids in the community or young people in the juvenile justice system. because each individual cared deeply about the topic, i left them a lot of space to find their passion and figure out how to channel it into realistic group projects. the “chaos” bothered the university students, but most of them figured out that this was a glimpse into the workings of the real world, and that compromise and making hard decisions is part of the process.

in the end, we’ve got a few projects that hold promise if the students can stay motivated and keep working on them after they’ve been assigned grades for the class. i’ll write about one of the ideas later — and another project i’m working on with the inmates and their children — but for now, i wanted to share a piece written by one of my inside students. it’s a letter to the editor of a local paper. it’s a fairly conservative publication, so i’m not sure it will ever be printed, but i wanted to put his message out there. if anyone has any advice for the writer/father, please leave a comment and i’ll pass it on.

Dear Editor,

I am a long time Oregon resident. I am writing this letter in hope of finding a solution to a community problem. My 16-year-old son has been arrested 3 times in the last year. The reason I say this is a community problem is that I believe it takes an entire village to raise a child, and I need help. I am currently incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary. My son lives with my mother along with his little brother and sister. My mother takes on this responsibility at age 62 on top of taking care of my little brother who has Down syndrome.

After being arrested a few times, my son was referred to the probation department, where my mother was told that my son did not really fit into their system. My son has cerebral palsy and is considered a “special needs” child. So what system does he fit into?

I am not looking to the community to help me, I am a grown man and I have made my decisions. I am asking for help for a child who is a part of Oregon’s community. His arrests have been for assault (fighting with his brother), stealing, and possession of marijuana. He has problems with anger. His mom left when he was a baby, he constantly battles with his cerebral palsy, he has had several operations on his legs, and his father is in prison. Wouldn’t you be angry if it was you?

What I want to know is, is there some type of community program designed to stop children like my son from coming to prison? Where will this cycle end? Will my son have to write this same letter to the community twenty years from now?

Maybe I am just uninformed. If there are programs out there to serve this purpose, could someone please send me a list of resources? I have faith in this village. Let’s come together and do what we can to raise this child.

any thoughts? advice?

The Low Road

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

–Marge Piercy, from The Moon is Always Female.

is it possible to make a difference in a student’s education in just one day? i guess it depends on the day.

having taught three inside-out classes in the oregon state penitentiary, i can say with absolute certainty that spending a quarter learning inside a maximum-security prison can change a life. i’ve seen it happen with my students, both inside (inmates) and outside (osu students). they learn about each other and from each other in ways that forever change their perspectives about crime, conformity, punishment, and prisons.

the challenge for me lately is to figure out if i can extend that kind of learning opportunity to more students in my larger on-campus classes. the first experiment took place this week when i took a dozen osu students into the penitentiary to meet with the lifer’s club. for me, the main goal was to humanize the other — to let the two groups interact and ask each other questions in a relatively informal setting (there were ground rules, of course, including strict limits as to the personal information exchanged. i was in no way bringing a dating pool into the prison). i wasn’t sure how much would be accomplished in one 2-hour session, but the students and the lifers were eager for the opportunity to meet. after getting through all the red tape, i was happy to facilitate the meeting between the two groups.

so what was the result? i asked the osu students for feedback and here are excerpts from some of their comments:

Thank you so much for giving me and the other students the opportunity to have an experience such as this one. It has definitely been one of the highlights of my college career. I appreciate it. I thought the lifers were great. I think it’s only natural for everyone to be a little nervous at first so I don’t know how to get around that, but they were all very open and respectful, and most were very eager to have discussion after a little warming up. I got so many different perspectives and insights from them, it was very beneficial.

The time we spent with the lifers was really life changing on how I now view prisons and inmates. I had never been to a prison before and definitely have never spoken to a big room of convicts. Every single inmate that I was able to talk with was very respectful of me and the other students in my group. I was surprised that so many had a positive outlook on life, even after being locked up for years and having many years to go until they had a chance of parole and some not even having that chance.

I went into this thinking these are all going to be bad guys with no personality, very mean, no remorse. I was really nervous when they all walked out. But after talking to a lot of them you realize they are humans too.

I would just really encourage those who participated to share with others what you saw, what you experienced, and encourage people to open their eyes and hearts to the idea that these men are PEOPLE, people who have paid a huge debt for their crimes and should be forgiven and given a chance to succeed in life.

so, i guess you can make a significant difference and push the limits of education in one day. it’s good to know. tomorrow morning i have a meeting at a correctional facility for girls and young women to discuss ways that my delinquency and sociology of education students might work with them in service-learning projects spring quarter (as in later this month). it will be an enormous amount of work to set it up, but it just may be worth it.

on another note, this blog will be moving to a new address shortly and it looks like we may be gaining new friends and readers in the process. stay tuned…

well, this is disappointing. i read last week’s nytimes review of love and consequences and i was looking forward to reading the book. from the excerpt, it seemed like an interesting, well-written book that dealt with issues of race, class, and gender, and might have been appropriate reading for a number of my classes on crime and delinquency. i also read the feature piece on author, margaret b. jones, and the life she created in eugene, oregon. it sounded nice.

unfortunately, it turns out the author fabricated the entire story. amazingly, no one caught the deception until after her “memoir” had been published and reviewed. as the nytimes reports:

In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods.

The problem is that none of it is true.

Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members.

this story just gives everyone involved a bad name. there was a compelling story to be told here, but why did the author have to claim it as her own? sometimes the real truth is found in fiction — that’s a lesson i learned in a journalism class as an undergraduate — but the distinction between truth and fiction should always be clear. credibility once lost is likely gone forever. the publishers have recalled all copies of the book, so now the author has become the story after all.