COs Get Their P.O.I.N.T. Across

COs William Fahr and Jim Boehm, Local 2549 (Council 88), have grown weary of a developing trend: children serving time in adult prisons.

Working in the Northampton County Prison in Easton, Pa., they watch over 15- and 16-year-old boys as they adjust to life among adult felons. In Pennsylvania, Fahr says, 14-year-olds can be sent to an adult facility, although, in his view, "Prison isn’t a place for anybody, let alone young people."

In 1999, they sat down and created P.O.I.N.T. (Prison Officers Informing Neighborhood Teens), a program that helps young people come to grips with their growing pains and the behavior they sometimes trigger. Through informal and frank discussions, they can learn to make better choices when facing the pressures and temptations of adolescence.

The increase in horrific violence in U.S. schools can be directly attributed to troubled children who, because of neglect, substance abuse or lack of parental guidance, use extreme measures to get attention. The fallout: students dodging bullets and teachers searching for weapons in the classroom. Not only does this exacerbate other problems in schools, it burdens the prison system and forces teens to live behind bars with grown-ups.

Referring to the two students who assaulted their peers at Columbine High School in Colorado, Boehm says: "Nobody knows what their purpose was in doing that, but the objective of our program is to bring to light for kids what is happening in the public eye. We just want to let kids know that if they need someone to listen to them, talk to someone. We let them know that if you’re going to make mistakes, think about the consequences."

Adds Fahr about today’s youth, "The nature of the crimes, and the kids’ general attitude toward drugs and violence, are shocking. We thought that if we could do something about this trend, it may keep children out of prison."

Fahr, Boehm or other COs visit Pennsylvania schools at least once a week to get their message across. Originally intended for middle school students, P.O.I.N.T. has expanded to children as young as 8 and as old as high school students. The COs have also reached out to college seniors who will become teachers after graduation, hoping to instill in them an understanding of what’s on the minds of the children they work with.

Fahr says the program is based on the soft-touch approach used by some juvenile detention centers. "We’re not patterned on the Scared Straight program, which was an excellent program at one time," he explains. "We both believe that if somebody is yelling at us, we’re going to tune them out. But if you talk to us, we’re going to listen — whether or not we agree with what you have to say."

P.O.I.N.T. has improved the public’s perception of COs, and Fahr and Boehm can now go into communities and openly discuss the ills of prison privatization. "Generally, we get a lot of bad press," says Fahr. "If anything bad happens, it gets magnified. This program has shed a better light on COs and our prisons." One result of that: "We’re getting more public support when we speak out against prison privatization."

The goal now is to expand the program nationwide, to replicate the success of D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), which has become part of school curriculums across the country. AFSCME and ACU are helping them toward that end. For example, at their council’s convention in March, Fahr and Boehm made their presentation in front of thousands of Pennsylvania COs. They will also spread their message at an ACU event in Washington, D.C., in May, as well as the ACU national convention in Minneapolis in August.

Asked how the program was doing in his state, Fahr responded: "We’ve had inmates tell us, ‘My kid said he saw you at the school and liked the program.’ We haven’t seen a [young] inmate imprisoned here who says they saw it."

AFSCME members who want to start a P.O.I.N.T. chapter can call Fahr or Boehm at (610) 559-3229. More information about the program is available on the web.