ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, December 19, 1996            TAG: 9612190023
SECTION: EDITORIAL                PAGE: A14  EDITION: METRO 

REDEMPTION BY WRITING OF WRONGS?

JAILS AREN'T meant to be, nor are they, comfortable clubs where criminals can chill between career moves. No longer do jails and prisons even pretend they're in the business of rehabilitating inmates.

Their purpose is to incarcerate wrongdoers, plain and simple. The guilty are punished, the law-abiding protected from further harm - for as long as the antisocial are removed from society, anyway.

One college professor and one student, though, are offering a handful of inmates at the Roanoke City Jail something more to ponder than how to serve out their time. The two volunteers are opening a door through which some student-inmates might discover creative, rather than destructive, ways of handling their impulses, expressing their feelings and understanding themselves in relation to their worlds.

English Professor Eric Trethewey and a Hollins College graduate student each are teaching a weekly course in creative writing. It is, said one participant, "the purest form of rehabilitation we've experienced."

If so, both the criminal jailed for his acts and the citizen imprisoned by fears of such acts have reason to be grateful for Trethewey's passionate initiative. Also, to wish a lot more efforts were undertaken to put craft and art, work and discovery at the service of redemption.

Some part of everyone hungers for vengeance against those who prey on others in society. Swift and certain punishment is justified. But nourishing a sense of common humanity, pushing the ruthlessly impulsive closer to self-awareness and personal responsibility, demanding honest self-examination - these endeavors can change lives and give society less cause to fear. That benefits all.

And such a path, truly followed, allows little room for mollycoddling. Setting out, the inmates write about the perceived indifference of others toward them, or oppression by others of them. They remind others that, despite whatever they have done, they, too, are human beings.

But writers who struggle to be honest with themselves must look eventually into the dark places of their own hearts. These writers say they've plenty of time to practice their craft; time is all they have. No amount of it will make this process easy, nor should it be.

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