Prison Program Aims to Get Teens to Avoid a Life of Crime
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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
A program in the [A]eastern[/A] United States invites young people into a prison to try to scare them away from prison. The goal is to teach them to avoid bad [A]choices[/A] and bad [A]influences[/A] that could put them behind bars for life.
Students can take a tour of the prison, in school groups or by themselves. At the end, the young people sit down for a discussion with some of the [A]inmates[/A].
The program is called Prisoners Against Teen Tragedy, or PATT. It takes place at the Maryland Correctional Institution-Hagerstown, a medium-security prison for men. Sal Mauriello is a case [A]specialist[/A] there.
SAL MAURIELLO: "We have a group of eleven inmates who are in the PATT [A]program[/A]. They tell the youth what they went through as a child, what their crimes consist of. They try to teach them about peer [A]pressure[/A]. They try to teach them about bad choices."
The Prisoners Against Teen Tragedy program also [A]includes[/A] an essay-writing contest.
Tomi Dare is a seventeen-year-old student at Hagerstown Community College. She saw an [A]announcement[/A] for the contest on her college website. To enter, students had to write about peer pressure and why they do not do drugs. The prize: five hundred [A]dollars[/A] for school.
In her essay, Ms. Dare wrote about her own experience growing up as an African-American girl [A]interested[/A] in sports.
TOMI DARE: "Drugs and [A]alcohol[/A] not only slow a person down, it doesn't make you feel like you are a winner. It doesn't make you feel like you are the best. As an athlete, I'm 6-2 [188 centimeters], so I feel that I should be above peer [A]pressure[/A] because I'm bigger than everybody that I'm around.
"So I was talking about that and I was talking about how I [A]consider[/A] myself a queen. And if I'm royalty, I need to not put substances in my body. Drugs and alcohol are not what a queen should be taking."
The scholarship is [A]presented[/A] by the Prisoners Against Teen Tragedy program.
Prison spokesman Mark Vernarelli says most teens who visit come to [A]understand[/A] what even one bad decision can mean.
MARK VERNARELLI: "A lot of men and women serving life in prison in the state of Maryland didn't pull a trigger or [A]plunge[/A] a knife into anybody. They were accessories to a crime. They drove the getaway car. They were with the perpetrator who did the main part of the crime. And yet they got the life [A]sentence[/A] as well. "
Prisoners Against Teen Tragedy began in nineteen eighty-eight. PATT is one of Maryland's oldest programs to keep young people from a life of [A]crime[/A]. But there are also others.
MARK VERNARELLI: "We found that girls really need special sit-down sessions sometimes more than the boys do, so we have a program for girls only. We have a program that travels [A]across[/A] the state, which talks about the dangers of gang [A]affiliation[/A].
"We have an [A]excellent[/A] program where the inmates actually lead a tour and they have the children eat the meal in the prison [A]cafeteria[/A] with the inmates."
Mark Vernarelli says the Prisoners Against Teen Tragedy also gain from the program. It offers them a chance to help repay [A]society[/A] for their crimes, and keep others from following in their [A]footsteps[/A].
