If at first you don't succeed...

OK, time for a break from scholarly articles from really smart people.

 

When we first started our monthly PACT meeting to orient new parolees to community resources, we set up the room in lecture hall style, rows looking forward at the speaker looking back. The men sat with arms crossed waiting to be impressed and determined to be bored. It was an unreceptive and unproductive situation.

 

After a couple months of this, someone suggested a change to cafe style around tables. Someone else suggested we start with breakfast. These simple changes completely altered the atmosphere of the room.

 

Now the day opened with conversation among people with a common life experience. Now when speakers talked about their own time in the system, the men could see a look of recognition in the faces across the table. Now when speakers finished there was spontaneous applause from an appreciative crowd.

 

Did it make a difference in the recidivism rate? I don't know. But I know that for an hour or two on a Tuesday morning people were open to new ideas and making new choices. That is a toe hold in their vertical free climb out of the place they have been.

 

JG