For the NY Times, Leah Price takes a look at Changing Lives Through Literature, “an alternative sentencing program that allows felons and other offenders to choose between going to jail or joining a book club. [...] [C]riminals who have been granted probation in exchange for attending, and doing the homework for, six twice-monthly seminars on literature.”

3 responses to “reading on probation”

  1. 03.02.2009 @ 2:30 pm Celeste says:

    I think this is the link for that article:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/books/review/Price-t.html?scp=1&sq=changing%20lives%20through%20literature&st=cse

    What an interesting article and an interesting idea. “Perhaps reading stories allows participants to form narratives (whether conscious or not) about their own past and future. In a study of more traditional 12-step programs, the criminologist Shadd Maruna has argued that recovery from addiction requires the ability to distinguish a “before” from an “after.” Searching for terms to explain the mechanism by which literature “changes” readers, participants come up with “turning points,” “epiphanies,” even “grace.” “When it’s working,” Waxler says, “this discussion has a kind of magic to it.””

    This suggests that fiction works here because of all art forms, it’s most focused on the arc, on the cause-and-effect, before-and-after that holds a narrative together.

  2. 03.02.2009 @ 5:01 pm astameshkin says:

    Thanks, Celeste; I forgot the link and just added it in.

    The program certainly sounds intriguing, and even the flaws Price points out (such as “it’s a self-selecting process”) don’t seem to negate its methods or goals; like any thoughtful rehabilitation program, it’s not going to work for everyone. Prison certainly doesn’t — and in many cases, it tends to be more focused on punishment than rehabilitation, change, etc., even when the crime is small and the criminal stands to become more of one by spending time there. So I’m not surprised that a program like this could prove more effective — for some convicts — than incarceration.

  3. 03.02.2009 @ 10:52 pm Jenni says:

    Hello Anne.

    Thanks for sharing this story with your readers–it’s great to see how many new people are finding out about the Changing Lives Through Literature program as a result of the article. I encourage anyone interested in finding out more about the program to check out the website at http://cltl.umassd.edu and to keep tabs on our blog at http://cltl.umassd.edu/blog . We’ll be posting a reaction piece to the Leah Price article on Wednesday and encourage you to check it out to see what we think Price got right and got wrong in her assessment of the program.

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