USA: "voiceless" inmates find healing through poetry program

For the past two decades, the Johnson County Library Incarcerated Services and Arts in Prison Writing programs have opened the world of literacy and writing to incarcerated juveniles and adults throughout Kansas.

These programs not only lighten the hopelessness and loss of identity experienced by many inmates, but they also provide opportunities for them to share their stories with an audience who might not ever hear their voices another way.

“These programs make a community connection with people who are traditionally invisible,” Johnson County Library Incarcerated Services Librarian Melody Kinnamon said.

In 2003, the Johnson County Library started its program by placing 200 books in a library at the juvenile detention center.

Since that time, the library program has expanded exponentially, serving nearly 9,000 incarcerated individuals — including nearly 7,500 juveniles and more than 1,000 adult offenders at Johnson County detention and residential centers.

The Kansas City Star reports that Changing Life through Literature is a juvenile program that emulates a traditional book club. Through this program, a library facilitator selects a book to be read by a group of juvenile offenders, probation officers, and a judge. All members of the group read and discuss the book in a book-club-like setting.

“Literature allows you to talk about things going on in your life, without really talking directly about them,” Johnson County Library Teen Services Coordinating Librarian Kate McNair said. “You talk about them through the eyes of characters or through the book’s plot or story line”.

“The judges see the juveniles in a different light and vice versa. They meet on common ground — but the common ground is not the courtroom. Relationships are built outside of the courtroom experience.”

The juvenile programs, which can be part of an offender’s adjudication program, also include visits from guest authors.

Jack Gantos, a Newberry Medal winner, discussed his book, “A Hole in My Life,” last year at the Juvenile Detention Center. Before Gantos’ visit, youth offenders read the book, which is based on the author’s prison stay, then discussed it with him.

“Guest authors inspire kids in detention to write their own books,” McNair said.

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