Second
Chances
A Radio
Documentary
Second Chances is the story of the Hocking Valley Community Residential Center, an innovative rehabilitation facility in Nelsonville, Ohio for kids who have been in trouble with the law. Producer Sandra Sleight-Brennan visited the facility and recorded staff members, parents, teachers, and the boys themselves.
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Second Chances is a story of a dream come true. It was the dream of the 11 judges in southeast Ohio to have a facility to rehabilitate juvenile offenders - not turn them into hardened criminals. The dream has become reality. In the three years the center has been open, 160 young men have passed through the program. Its success rate has been 85% -- 35% higher than the state average.
The center has a newspaper dedicated to the words of the teens, called CENTER life & times. In it, the boys tell about their own personal experiences. Susan Mitchell, Intake Coordinator of the center and editor of the newspaper, believes it is a key element of the boys' success:
"Every article is their words. Sometimes you'll see grammar that's not correct. I felt that it [their story] is important to be stated as they stated it. Sometimes you lose the power and the message if it's not said just as they said it."
Listen to the boys' poignant stories from a recent issue of CENTER life & times:
"When I first got in here I knew that I could sing good. I never really had singing lessons or anything like that. One day my youth specialist said I ought to sing for Sally. Well I sang for Sally and she liked my voice..."
"When I was eight I got taken away from my mom and my family. It takes your childhood away. It feels like crap. My life fell apart..."
Susan remarks:
"Writing that article was one way of getting things off his chest. Admitting that he felt guilt because the family fell apart was also a big step for him...He took great pride in that article."
"Right before he died my father and I got in a big argument. I feel really bad because I never got to apologize. I was on drugs. I went to a party and we were all getting drunk..."
"What does it feel like to be all alone,
Not a friend to call your own,
Sitting up at night with no one to talk to,
No one to comfort you..."
Susan comments:
"It's so sad for me to listen to that piece because he has experienced levels of loneliness that most 14-year-olds and maybe some 80-year-olds have never experienced."
"I think that politics is a very weird thing. they say that the American public runs the US, but I think the government runs it more because when they go to sign a bill they do not ask the people if they want that bill signed...."
"There are a lot of things that need to be changed. They should break the world down into one unit of government that benefits everyone. Then make new laws to benefit the people as opposed to corporations..."
Susan Mitchell stresses that these troubled young people are all around us:
"These aren't far away kids. There are kids like this in every community and every neighborhood and they are so lonely. Many of them are in need of caring, compassionate, law-abiding mentors. We all need to listen to this and not think 'that's so sad, that's in somebody else's neighborhood'. It's in everybody's neighborhood, and I feel sad that nobody was in this kid's neighborhood to try and get him to the park when other kids his age were going to the park, go to little league...Many adults who are very successful didn't become successful because of their family,. They became successful because a neighbor cared about them."
©Copyright 1997 by Ohio University Public Radio
Radio feature by
Sandra Sleight-Brennan
Boys’ stories edited by Dalya F. Massachi, Jamie Codding,
Aaron Cohn, and Caroline Broder
Web page by Dalya F. Massachi and Sandra Sleight-Brennan