By Mark Bashore, WKAR News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-956225.mp3
LANSING, MI –
Today in Lansing, dozens of at risk youth will have a chance to talk with inmates at the Bellamy Correctional Facility in Ionia. The prisoners face serious challenges. Their crimes range from drug possession to murder. This evening at Lansing Community College's Dart Auditorium, they'll open up about their lives behind bars.
WKAR's Mark Bashore spoke with the director of the event, the second in a series called "Breaking the Cycle of Incarceration." Derrick Jones says the purpose of the live video exchange is to get young people to think carefully about the lasting consequences that can stem from reckless choices.
AUDIO:
DERRICK JONES: "Most of the panelists that will be working with us are older gentleman but we'll have a 42-year old gentleman who served 25 years in prison---he went to prison at 17 years old. So the choices they made when they were younger has led them to be separated from society and from the community for over 20 years. So again the main point of emphasis that we are going to discuss on Tuesday is going to be choices and the impact of the choices that you make now."
MARK BASHORE: "Describe the at-risk youth that attend for us. Typically, how much trouble have they gotten into, how old are they?"
JONES: "The youth that we are marketing the event to are a myriad. There will be some students from the Lansing school district who may just be struggling with attendance. We've also invited different residential treatment centers, Camp Highfields in Onondaga---adjudicated youth who have already been through the court system---have been found guilty of some type of crime and been sent to placement for treatment. They're going to bring most of their camp out. There'll be other youth who are kind of just walking in with their parents and I've gotten phone calls from those families saying, 'Hey, my 16-year old is really struggling, I'm going to bring them to this event so maybe they can hear some different things.' There'll also be some youth who are on probation with the Ingham County court."
BASHORE: "Now for anyone who's seen (the TV program)"Scared Straight" or "Beyond Scared Straight," how are your sessions similar and how are they different?"
JONES: "Our event is completely, 100% different than 'Scared Straight.' We look at making change in our youth through information and education. And so there'll be no intimidation. We're not going to speak about the violence in prison. We're not going to speak about any of the assaults and things that take place in prison. We're going to more talk about how prison impacts your family, how prison impacts you emotionally as an individual, how a criminal record is going to impact your ability to find employment in the future, provide for your family. Some of the losses that you may experience when you're in prison, whether it's your own personal freedom, family members passing, family members getting sick. You will not be able to be part of those reconciliations as those people get better. And just really talk about the separation from the people that you care about. But at no point in time are we trying to scare anybody straight."
BASHORE: "Now how much evidence or data is there that this kind of approach is effective?"
JONES: "We have yet to develop that data, with this being such a new initiative. That evidence is not there yet. Again, we're looking to create better follow-up. But just kind of anecdotal evidence would draw you to the fact that this is impacting the lives of the people who are in attendance."
BASHORE: "There's a video of the first Breaking the Cycle' session from last May on You Tube---quite emotional. Let's listen to that now. This is from one of the inmates at that gathering."
INMATE: "A lot of my friends---I don't really have too many friends anymore. Personally, I've had one visit, I think, in the last ten years or so, since a lot of family members have died off."
BASHORE: "And that's obviously the kind of disclosure that creates the impact you're looking for. Is there another one you recall from that first session?"
JONES: "There was a question from the audience to one of the panelists concerning his children. And this particular panelist had four sons, two of which had been adopted out. And as he began to tell the story of them being adopted out, that he's lost contact with them for over seven or eight years, he actually was so overcome with emotion that he told the audience that he couldn't continue with that story. And at that point in time, you could feel everybody in the audience just really empathizing with that individual and really seeing the impact of him losing those children and how that made him feel at that moment. And it was just a tremendously genuine, raw emotional moment and that's what we're looking to really capture in this event."