Texas - The Hippies Strike Back

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When Mitchell Rouse was convicted of two drug offences in Houston, the former x-ray technician who faced a 60-year prison sentence – reduced to 30 years if he pleaded guilty – was instead put on probation and sentenced to read.

...

Five years on, he is free from drugs, holding down a job as a building contractor, and reunited with his family. He describes being sentenced to a reading group as "a miracle" and says the six-week reading course "changed the way I look at life".

"It made me believe in my own potential. In the group you're not wrong, you're not necessarily right either, but your opinion is just as valid as anyone else's," he says.

...

Repeat offenders of serious crimes such as armed robbery, assault or drug dealing are made to attend a reading group where they discuss literary classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bell Jar and Of Mice and Men.

Rouse's group was run by part-time lecturer in liberal studies at Rice University in Houston, Larry Jablecki, who uses the texts of Plato, Mill and Socrates to explore themes of fate, love, anger, liberty, tolerance and empathy.

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Groups are single sex and the books chosen resonate with some of the issues the offenders may be facing.

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Of the 597 who have completed the course in Brazoria County, Texas, between 1997 and 2008, only 36 (6%) had their probations revoked and were sent to jail.

A year-long study of the first cohort that went through the programme, which was founded in Massachusetts in 1991, found that only 19% had reoffended compared with 42% in a control group. And those from the programme who did reoffend committed less serious crimes.

CLTL is the brainchild of Robert Waxler, a professor of English at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. As an experiment, he convinced his friend, Judge Kane, to take eight criminals who repeatedly came before him and place them on a reading programme that Waxler had devised instead of sending them to prison.

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In Texas, the public have been largely won over by the success rates and how cheap the programme is to run. Instead of spending a lifetime in prison at a cost of more than $30,000 (£19,520) a year, Rouse's "rehabilitation" cost the taxpayer just $500 (£325).

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Rouse says it is hard to judge how much the reading group should take credit for turning his life around as he'd already made the decision to change.

"I didn't want to lose my family," he says. "But the group did give me the guidance and direction I needed in my life, and without it I'd have spent the rest of my life in jail. It gave me a second chance."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/21/texas-offenders-reading-courses

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

[Peikko 1,575]

The Brit Conservatives have done a complete u-turn on incarceration (oh the joy of getting elected!) and now believe that it is a fundamentally flawed approach to dealing with the majority of criminals - I doubt this will catch on however

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The Brit Conservatives have done a complete u-turn on incarceration (oh the joy of getting elected!) and now believe that it is a fundamentally flawed approach to dealing with the majority of criminals - I doubt this will catch on however

I wonder if it's simply a way of spinning the fact that they can't afford to keep all those people inside - seeing as how Cameron as banging on before the election about how he wanted criminals to be banged up for longer.

I quite like Ken Clarke, but I thought the Tories had kicked him to the curb years ago. Now they're apparently willing to listen to him when he says that prison doesn't work. After the Raoul Moat incident - he's not wrong!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It sounds great, but I'm wary of violent offenders qualifying for the program.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

It sounds great, but I'm wary of violent offenders qualifying for the program.

The violent types are easy to deal with. It's the nerdy types that never leave momma's basement that are the scary ones.

[Peikko 1,575]

I wonder if it's simply a way of spinning the fact that they can't afford to keep all those people inside - seeing as how Cameron as banging on before the election about how he wanted criminals to be banged up for longer.

I quite like Ken Clarke, but I thought the Tories had kicked him to the curb years ago. Now they're apparently willing to listen to him when he says that prison doesn't work. After the Raoul Moat incident - he's not wrong!

Oh, I think it is a combination of things. I wish I could remember who I heard on the radio saying that the answer was to close all prisons completely, I bold statement that was economically driven I think.

Personally, I do not think there is a 'one size fits all' solution to the problems created by criminals and incarceration can be appropriate - however it is interesting that engaging certain criminals in 'the arts' has some dramatic effects as those who have the ability, somehow seem to learn to empathize with their victims through this and that is the first step in not re-offending for many which has to be the ultimate goal in a lot of non violent crimes - there is a program running in the UK where inmates (and some screws) put on a musical with a professional company and some of the outcomes were astonishing. Makes you think.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The violent types are easy to deal with. It's the nerdy types that never leave momma's basement that are the scary ones.

Have you been victimized by nerds?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Have you been victimized by nerds?

Are you ready to apologize now?

[Darnell 8,479]

Hippies in Texas ?!?!? What ?? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaah - not like ya think

Join My 'Be A Reader' Campaign, today !!!

Actually, you should read Prof. Larry Jablecki's bio at http://mls.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=1104&linkidentifier=id&itemid=1104

He gots he phD from Manchester U, in the UK - no 'Hippies' there, right ?

Edited July 22, 2010 by Darnell

[Ban Hammer 14,361]

Have you been victimized by nerds?

if one counts windows and bill gates, yes.

[luckytxn 2,265]

It may be that they saw how close they were to going to prison for a long time that made them turn their life around and not the reading.