Managing Editor
Teen inmates hear, share words of wisdom
Eight weeks later, the 15- to 18-year-olds were familiar enough with the Toastmasters International guidelines that they policed each other on the rules.
They’re familiar with rules. And police.
They are teenage inmates at the Duval County Jail who completed the “Power, Polish and Purpose” class to learn public speaking and presentation skills.
The class, inspired by Toastmasters International, is designed to provide them skills to improve their lives when they are released.
Wednesday night was graduation, when program leader Peggy Johnson delivered on her promise to bring in fried chicken, pizza, chips and desserts, all chosen from the boys’ wish lists.
“Remember what I said? Food galore,” said martial arts expert and instructor Kirk Farber, reminding the class that it started with 16 students and ended with 12 at graduation. Two withdrew and two were released from jail.
Farber congratulated the class for adhering to the rules, doing their homework, preparing their assignments and staying in line to attend the weekly classes.
Farber also talked about the importance of goals. “You have a goal,” he said. “Getting out of here.”
Farber left the students with three directives: Be a leader, not a follower; think before you act; and be assured “that you can say no.”
“If you give up, all it is is free food tonight,” he said.
Johnson, a longtime Toastmaster, speaker and clothing boutique owner, taught the class for 11 years, then took last year off because of lost funding. It was funded by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office until budget cuts.
She, Farber and motivational athlete and author Almon Gunter, resumed the program this year with less financial support, although much appreciated. Communities In Schools provided $200.
She said costs total $2,400 for each eight-week session.
Most of the students who have attended “Power, Polish and Purpose” are charged with felonies, although a few are charged with misdemeanors who have been convicted as adults on prior felony charges or who had their felony charges reduced to misdemeanors, according to Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Jails Division Chief Tara Wildes.
Wildes said that once convicted as an adult, a teenager is considered an adult, unless the court rules otherwise.
Graduation speaker Doug Brown, chief operating officer of Operation New Hope, shared his story of realizing he needed a college degree to create his own life path.
“People are defining you,” he said, emphasizing that it was up to the students to “decide what you’re going to be.”
“Nobody can do it for you. You have to decide what your fate is going to be in life,” said Brown. “You gotta deal with you.”
Operation New Hope, based in Jacksonville, has two missions, building affordable housing and rebuilding the lives of ex-offenders.
Many of the students in the class have multiple charges, while the main offenses include armed robbery, burglary, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and sexual battery.
Alan Louder, director of juvenile diversion in the Juvenile Division of the State Attorney’s Office, has been familiar with the class for several years. He has been in his current position for two years and before that he ran the Jailed Juvenile Program at the jail for three years. The program was a partnership of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, the State Attorney’s Office and Communities In Schools, he said.
“It is probably the most powerful class that they get the whole time they are there,” he said.
“It hits on so many angles. It teaches them to respect each other, and in the juvenile population, they don’t have respect for each other,” said Louder.
Louder said that respect spreads. “We very rarely had fights in the dorms because it trickled down to everybody,” he said.
“You could stand there and know who was in Toastmasters because their clothes were pulled up and their hair was combed,” he said.
Louder said that the class “gave them a sense of self-worth. You start to see their attitudes change.”
Louder said the students have traditionally been asked to speak to at-risk students and parents.
“Before, they never would have thought about speaking. To see these kids who are locked up, who are trying to do anything to survive, to want to do something for nothing, and something they would normally have never done, for (them) to change (their) heart like that, I take off my hat to Toastmasters,” said Louder.
At Wednesday’s graduation, students delivered their final class speeches, focusing on reasons for gratitude, a wish list of places to go and people to meet and their goals for the next six months, two years and five years.
Travel dreams included Brazil, Puerto Rico, Paris, Italy, Japan and Washington, D.C. People to meet included President Obama and Michael Jordan. Knowledge and skills to gain included trades, music, public speaking and running a business.
Among goals:
• “Get my family in a better community and pay my mom’s bills.”
• “Let my sister and cousins know I was wrong and it’s not cool to be locked up.”
• Learn a trade to “be on my own, live comfortable and not worry about the lights being turned out and the rent being paid.”
• Have a “beautiful wife and a big family. I want a football team of kids.”
• “Have one child. I don’t know about five and all that,” said one student, who then decided, “one and a puppy.”
Johnson, who estimates she has worked with more than 500 teenage inmates at the jail, plans to schedule another eight-week program in the fall.
She wants to find more funding and also is considering a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to seek grants to assist with the classes.
“I am so honored to have spent eight weeks with these future leaders,” she said to the class Wednesday.
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