Inmates Challenged to Explore Books, Set Minds Free : Utah: Prison program’s goal is to alter criminals’ self-concept and view of the world. A discussion of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ explores difference between ‘borrowing’ and ‘stealing.’ Then there’s ‘taking.’

POINT OF THE MOUNTAIN, Utah — A few feet from where state prison inmates spend their days punching out license plates, a group of felons is discussing Huckleberry Finn’s definition of thievery.

Leon Hendricks, a heavily tattooed offender, easily grasps the moral distinctions between “borrowing” and “stealing” made by Mark Twain’s hero. But in Hendricks’ macho world of prison and the streets, “taking” is just as excusable as “borrowing,” and both are poles apart from “stealing.”

“Stealing is when you take someone’s stuff when they’re not around,” Hendricks says, adding a pungent disparaging remark about that particular activity.

“But if you’re taking something,” he adds, “you just take it and they can do something about it if they’re man enough.”

“What if someone pulls a gun?” another inmate asks.

For Hendricks, the answer is obvious. “Then I ain’t taking it,” he replies.

In and out of prison four times in eight years for theft and parole violations, Hendricks, 26, was getting ready to be released to a halfway house. He was looking forward to being a father to his three children, but knew he could be back in prison before long. (And he was right; within days of being released, a possibly drug-induced rampage landed him in jail facing new criminal charges.)

Prisons in the United States, where a higher percentage of the populace is behind bars than anywhere in the world--455 for every 100,000 people--are full of Leon Hendrickses. Why?

“Despite the multitude of differences in their backgrounds and crime patterns, criminals are alike in one way: how they think,” Dr. Stanton E. Samenow writes in “Inside the Criminal Mind,” a book that serves as the inspiration for a unique pilot program at Utah State Prison.

The Cognitive Restructuring Through Moral Literacy program is aimed at changing criminal minds through character education derived from intensive study of great books. It’s how Leon Hendricks met Huck Finn.

The theory behind the program is a flat rejection of the view that criminals basically are victims of societal forces beyond their control.

Rather, as Samenow sees it, criminals “regard the world as a chessboard over which they have total control, and they perceive people as pawns to be pushed around at will.”

In short, criminals choose criminality and they, not society, are to blame. Any attempt at rehabilitation, according to Samenow, must involve radical alteration of a criminal’s self-concept and view of the world.

Since January, selected inmates at Utah State Prison have been reading, completing rigorous computerized study guides and attending discussions with University of Utah student volunteers about such books as “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Call of the Wild” and “1984.”

The first phase of the program, funded by a $25,000 grant from the National Institute of Corrections, involves 25 books and will end in August. But Larry Bench, the research consultant for the state Department of Corrections who conceived and oversees the project, says that is too few books to affect behavior.

Working with University of Utah sociologist Gerald W. Smith, Bench has compiled a list of 100 books that will take inmates a minimum of 3,000 hours to master. They range from classics of literature and biography to ancient and contemporary philosophy and self-help texts--from Plato’s “The Republic” to Stephen R. Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”

Bench and Smith rejected works that were too theoretical, ambiguous or inflammatory. “We were not too interested in including ‘What’s Wrong With America’s Prison System?’ ” Bench explained with a laugh.

Participants have not found the program easy. Only 19 of the original 55 volunteers remain active, although 17 of the dropouts were either transferred or otherwise prevented from continuing.

One casualty was a white supremacist who refused to study the life of black leader, journalist and statesman Frederick Douglass. Another, told he was signing up for a “moral literacy” program, showed up prepared to discuss “moral intimacy.”

The survivors are somewhat older and better-educated than the general prison population, Bench said. They include murderers, sex offenders and thieves, and they are variously motivated. But the opportunity to work on the program’s 20 computers and to discuss Geoffrey Chaucer or Homer with attractive young college students are strong enticements.

“It doesn’t get much better than that in prison,” said Bench, who will evaluate the inmates’ progress with reading, vocabulary and empathy tests. Data on recidivism rates will, of course, take much longer.

But Bench believes he and Smith already have met their main initial goal: to prove that such an experimental program can work inside a medium-security facility.

“We haven’t had one disciplinary incident. In fact, we haven’t had any of the problems we thought we’d have,” he said. “We thought the books would be ripped off or destroyed. But to date we haven’t lost one book. Even the people that dropped out sent the books back.”

One enrollee, a sex offender with a graduate degree, said most of the participants are “currently less violent than the average inmate,” and primarily were drawn by the reading list and the opportunity to learn to type and become computer-literate.

“On the whole, I feel the program is worthwhile as a vehicle for promoting moral reasoning,” the inmate, who asked not to be identified, wrote in an evaluation of the program.

The university students in Smith’s classes write the study guides using Computer Tutor software, then participate in book discussions at the prison. They give the program mixed reviews.

Several admitted they were frightened at first. Some of the women were disturbed by catcalls as they passed through the prison. But most enjoyed the discussions.

“They wanted to convince us of their views,” said Krista Simonsen. “They wanted to change our minds.”

Back at the prison, the “Huckleberry Finn” discussion continues. Hendricks is roundly chided for championing a code of conduct he is warned will land him back in prison once he hits the streets.

The exchange is lively, moving one inmate to observe: “If we had had this discussion in [the prison] population, it would have resulted in blows and name-calling.”

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A Reading List to Unlock Minds

A list of some of the 100 books in the Cognitive Restructuring Through Moral Literacy experimental program at Utah State Prison:

* “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott * “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius * “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen * “Seize the Day” by Saul Bellow * “The Book of Virtues: A Treasure of Great Moral Stories” by William J. Bennett * “Fatherless America” by David Blankenhorn * “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess * “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie * “The 10 Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make and How to Avoid Them” by Freeman DeWolf * “The Brothers Karamazov” and “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky * “Teaching Your Children Values, Three Steps to a Strong Family” by Richard and Linda Eyre * “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding * “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” by Homer * “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo * “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger * “Complete Works” by William Shakespeare * “Anger Kills: Seventeen Strategies for Controlling the Hostility That Can Harm Your Health” by Redford Williams and Virginia William * “The Moral Sense” by James Q. Wilson

Source: Associated Press