English Professor Changes Probationers’ Lives Through Literature

By Jeanne Wallace-Buckley

If Taylor Stoehr had selected the student least likely to benefit from his community program’s spring class it would have been Thomas. The scruffy, formerly homeless man often monopolized the class, speaking in clichés and in poor English.

“But by the end he was everyone’s hero,” explained Stoehr, professor of English. “He became eloquent. First he found his feet, then his voice.”

When he showed up in a velvet suit with his mother for the graduation ceremony, she declared, “You people have surely changed Thomas.”

And that’s what the program “Changing Lives Through Literature” boldly proclaims to do.

Probationers of Dorchester District Court have been sentenced to this alternative program since Judge Sydney Hanlon initiated it in the mid-90s. Between 15- 20 criminal offenders participate in a ten-week literature seminar at UMass Boston that uses the Narrative of the Life of an American Slave as the basis for analysis, discussion, and writing on social, economic, and race issues relevant to the participants.

Classes are facilitated by two probation officers, two professors and a judge, and have served men ages 17 to 70, primarily men of color, both first-time and repeat offenders. Though “Changing Lives” is a self-contained program, it is only one of dozens of programs nationwide based on a model developed by

Robert Waxler of UMass Dartmouth in 1991. The facilitators attempt to use probationers’ positive interactions with their peers to help them articulate and validate their experiences.

The only requirements of the class are showing up and coming to class straight. Although Stoehr, the program director, acknowledges that not everyone completes homework assignments, the class is structured so that everyone can participate.

“Our job is to present a question that leads them to the serious question,” Stoehr explains. “We then talk about their ideas and issues on a human level.” He also believes that the program changes the way they see themselves and their situations. “By the eighth week, everyone loves this program.”

Upon complete of the program, the probationers attend a graduation ceremony at the courthouse where three judges, police, probation officers, and families are witness to the program’s success, and each receives a book and certificate of completion. Though no formal tracking system exists, one informal measure indicates that the recidivism rate drops from 45 to 19 percent in program graduates.

Stoehr, who came to the university in 1971, is a pacifist and believes that the program not only changes individual live, but it is representative of initiatives necessary to the future of prison reform.
“Alternative sentencing has to grow,” declares Stoehr. “The U.S. has more people in prison than anywhere else in the world.”

Stoehr is currently working on a book about his experience with the program entitled Changing Lives.

Image: Taylor Stoehr, professor of English. (Photo by Harry Brett)

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