How it all started...for the second time. FB Post from 2/25/16

Last week I finally went back to jail. To teach my favorite class of the week. After a sort of short hiatus. Let's just say that I was temporarily fired from my volunteer job. Something about rule following - a skill I've yet to master. I must be pretty good at groveling, though, because they let me back in.

Anyway, I'm glad to be back teaching a writing class to a select group of men at Bridgeport Correctional Center. BCC is a pretrial facility so my roster changes from week to week, depending on who's in court that day, who's been sentenced and transferred out to a state or federal prison or who has erred behaviorally during the week and subsequently is not allowed off the block to attend class. Regardless of who shows up, however, the men are focused. As a group they have decided that a collective project of telling their stories is where they want to focus their efforts. Not once has any of them declared innocence or otherwise made excuses for their presence in jail, some of them for the second, third, fourth time. What they would like, however, is the opportunity to be productive while serving their time.

Of course it is great to be so well received and be genuinely thanked for coming every week (one new guy learned I was a VOLUNTEER and he damn near fell out of his seat - I got a fist bump for that! Ha!), but I think the words of one of the guys says it all:

"Having always been a problem prisoner, always in some sort of trouble doing most of my time in segregation or ticket blocks, on loss of all privileges or just not participating for anything, I took an interest in this writing program. After the first few weeks I realized that I wanted to continue with the group and looked toward the next group at the end of each. In order to continue along in the weekly group I had to regulate my behavior in order to stay involved. That meant no more problems, seg or tickets. I modified my behavior because I had something to look toward that was positive for a change. That one hour, maybe a bit longer, would turn into many hours of writing on some chosen subject for the next group."

There is a reason that the large majority of inmates are not in my class, as not all are candidates for correction - if that is the goal of the system.  However, I think the stories these men have to tell will be worth reading.

I'll keep you posted. Literally.