Foes take to stage, and find new friends
Jailers turn to arts to soothe the savage breast of US
youth
Across the country, corrections officials for
youth are turning to the arts, to improve behavior within the
corrections system, and to prevent new admissions from outside.
In Chicago, for the Music Theater Workshop, a
nonprofit organization that creates original theater with youths
detained in the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, is a
notable example. It brings detention-center residents together to turn
personal stories into plays, which they perform for parents, judges,
prosecutors, and probation officers.
The potential for the arts to influence juvenile
offenders was evident on a recent night. A dozen girls, ages 13 to 16,
who had been detained for crimes ranging from petty theft to murder,
gathered to read stories at a meeting of the Fabulous Females program.
One of them, Christina, recounted how she had been
walking from a McDonald's with her younger brother, Happy Meal in hand,
when he was shot in the head, purportedly by members of the Latin Kings
gang. As he bled, the boy told her that he didn't want to survive if he
couldn't really live.
When Christina found out that the bullet had severely
damaged her brother's brain, and that he was being kept alive by
machines, she told the group: ''I went over and opened his eye, and I
didn't see anything. I pulled out the cords and ran out of the room.''
The story's impact was powerful and swift. Girls
embroiled in rivalries over race or gang affiliation passed notes of
encouragement, hugged, and tearfully exchanged tales of hardship. Others
leaned quietly over their sheets of paper — and then hammered out their
own stories.
''Today is the day we all have to make a choice,''
read Cynthia, a Puerto Rican who, as a result of the meeting, ended a
rivalry with an African-American. ''No more fights. We need to fight the
anger inside of us and turn it into happiness.''
While research has found that arts education can
improve overall academic performance, the studies are preliminary on
whether the arts can contribute to peace among youth. But encouraging
evidence can be gleaned from personal observations.
Chiara Liberatore, a youth development program manager
with Music Theater Workshop, said that participants blossom in the
process of writing, rehearsing, and performing the plays. Shy kids
become leaders and learn to communicate more effectively with peers and
adults.
''We create an environment for them that helps them
achieve the utmost,'' Liberatore said. ''The problem is that that
environment isn't always available when they get out.''
In cities around the country, corrections staff,
nonprofit organizations, and individuals are putting together arts
education programs for at-risk youth, with city and state arts
commissions. The Midnight Shakespeare program in San Francisco and the
Juvenile Gang Prevention Program in Dallas are among the examples.
In Boston, a nonprofit group called Artists for
Humanity has apprenticeships for economically disadvantaged urban
teenagers. Professional artists train the youth, who are paid, to
produce art products to sell to the business community. Apprentices are
currently helping professional architects to design the organization's
new building on West Second Street in South Boston.
While many cities can boast numerous arts programs for
at-risk youth, few juvenile correctional facilities offer the arts to
their residents. According to Grady Hillman, the executive director of
the Florida International University Community Arts Institute, poorer
states are producing some of the best work in arts education for young
offenders because it provides a cheaper alternative to incarcerating
juveniles.
From his studies of the Alabama Writers Forum and the
Mississippi Core Arts Program, among others, Hillman has learned that
arts education in corrections works best when professional artists
provide long-term instruction to participants, when art programs are
available to receive the youth once they leave detention, and when there
is collaboration between arts organizations and a criminal justice
department.
What is sorely lacking, Hillman says, is a coherent
national policy for arts in juvenile corrections. Most programs are
funded by local grants. They thus cannot depend on a permanent, steady
flow of cash.
According to Liberatore of the Music Theater Workshop,
a widespread inclination toward punishing youth rather than
rehabilitating them has curbed national funding for the arts in juvenile
detention centers.
''Harsher and harsher sentences are being given to
younger and younger kids,'' Liberatore said. ''Long, hard time is kind
of the trend right now.''
Music Theater Workshop offers three programs at the
Cook County detention center. The Fabulous Females program, which relies
on foundations, grants, and private donors for funding, was created
seven years ago to provide a haven for the girls, who make up only 10
percent of the resident population. The Temporary Lockdown program, for
young women and men, was established 12 years ago and is funded entirely
by the Illinois Arts Council. A program for those on probation, called
Create Justice, created last year, relies on foundation grants.
While personal accounts of the effectiveness of the
arts programs abound, there is little statistical evidence showing that
the arts decrease, or increase, recidivism. Because laws protecting the
privacy of minors make it difficult to track juvenile offenders once
they leave detention centers, it is all but impossible to determine how
often young participants of arts education programs find themselves back
in jail.
But some encouragement has resulted from several
recent studies on arts in juvenile corrections.
In a report soon to be published in the Journal of
Correctional Education, Mark Ezell, an associate professor of social
welfare at the University of Kansas, wrote that an arts program called A
Changed World, at a youth correctional facility in Washington state, had
deeply reduced the incidence of misbehavior among participants.
Ezell also found that youth who had participated in A
Changed World were less likely to be arrested again than those who had
not. Ezell cautioned that he is wary of those findings because of the
study's small sample sizes.
A report published in May 2001 by the Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the National Endowment
for the Arts also bolstered the arts-education theory. A three-year
evaluation of at-risk youth and juvenile-offender programs in San
Antonio, Portland, Ore., and Atlanta showed that youth who had
participated had reported fewer run-ins with authorities, had become
more accepting of school and the community, and had improved their
ability to communicate with peers and adults.
Willie Ross, the assistant superintendent of programs
for the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, acknowledged the positive
impact of arts programs. He emphasized, however, that the center most
needs is a job development program to help prevent unemployment from
leading youth back into the correctional system.
Still, the teenagers who participate in the arts
programs report that they have something to get their minds off the
streets, and they see a connection between arts education and future
employment.
''Being in the plays would help them open their mind
to more stuff, different stuff,'' said Tegina, 16, who was rehearsing
for a Black History Month play in a classroom down the hall from the
Music Theater Workshop. ''Instead of selling drugs, you could think
about being an actress, or a choreographer, or a director.''
By Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
23 March 2003
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/082/nation/Jailers_turn_to_arts_to_soothe_the_savage_breast_of_US_youth+.shtml
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