 "Photo: Stephen Durda")
Devo Carpenter's little boy was in big trouble. After thoughtlessly boarding his school bus with a shiny, new set of throwing knives, care of a doting uncle, the PTA vice president's 12-year-old son suddenly found himself with a one-way ticket to the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center.
"I just couldn't believe it," Carpenter said. "When I was growing up you would have only got a slap on the wrist, but these days everything is zero tolerance."
Carpenter never asked for her new-found acquaintance with the juvenile justice system. But touring Gardner Betts, the avid reader and Austin Public Library youth specialist couldn't help but notice that something was painfully lacking - books.
"I found that there were holes," she said. "The detention center didn't have a library."
Next door, the Gardner Betts Leadership Academy did have a library, but Carpenter discovered that the Academy's collection of almost entirely donated publications left much to be desired.
"I'll never forget it," she said. "The first time I walked in there, staring at me on the bookshelf was 'What to do if You Have Prostate Cancer.' I thought, 'Oh my God! This is wrong!'"
Carpenter began talking with the center's educational director about obtaining books for a new and improved browsing collection.
"It just makes sense that if you put good literature in their hands, something that they actually want to read, then they're going to read it."
Soon the volunteer and advocacy group Friends of the Austin Public Library was on board, and in 2003 the Second Chance Books program was born.
Since its inception, the program has grown into one of the library's most compelling success stories. It has received numerous awards, including the 2005 Hotho Literacy Award and the 2006 Texas Library Association Project of the Year award. In March, bestselling author James Patterson awarded Second Chance Books with a $5,000 PageTurner grant.
The Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center is not your average detention center. The 108-bed facility on South Congress recedes unassumingly from the hustle and bustle traffic of a shopping center across the street. Walking into one building of the complex, visitors surrender the contents of their pockets while being poked and prodded by security guards equipped with familiar black and yellow wands. Set foot into the academy next door, however, and dioramas evoking scenes from classics like "Little Women" and "Gulliver's Travels" offer a surreal welcome with open, super-glued, Popsicle-stick arms.
Karen Devane, educational coordinator at Gardner Betts, is responsible for the latter building.
"What we do here is offer numerous programs like anger control and management, cognitive skills, reading and rehabilitation - 'What are the consequences of my choices?'" she explains.
The Leadership Academy, which serves as an alternative to the Texas Youth Commission, houses juveniles between the ages of 13 and 18 who have each accumulated multiple misdemeanors and or felonies. Candidates are subjected to an interview process to determine whether or not they are suited to take advantage of the academy's special programs. Once admitted, Devane says getting the youth, many of whom have histories of drug use, violence and domestic abuse, on the path to rehabilitation is a slow process.
"A lot of times when we first ask these kids where they see themselves in five years, 'Dead' will be the answer. They can't even see their lives that far ahead. Everything we do here is designed to give them choices. We try to let them know that they can make changes," she said.
The facility employs a "positive peer culture" model where incarcerated youth, separated by gender, hold one another responsible for their own actions. Peer reviews dictate progression through multiple rehabilitation phases - the higher a resident's phase the more privileges are available to him.
Since Second Chance Books' arrival, reading has become one of the most popular pastimes at the academy. Residents with shaved heads wearing prison uniforms read books ranging from pulp to classic, fiction and non-fiction every day between school and evening therapy. A newfound love for literature is apparent in stark concrete and plastic cells where quotes from W.E.B. DuBois and Miguel de Cervantes adorn the walls. This month, while studying for the TAKS test, one unit at the academy will read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X."
"Reading can be a habit," Carpenter said. "It's one of the many habits that we try to instill in these kids with the hope that when they leave, they'll continue with the good behavior that they've learned here."
Devane tells the story of one of the students who advanced to the halfway house program of the academy. "The first thing he wanted to do when he got out of here was pay off his library fine," she said. "He wanted to make sure that he could check out books."
Aside from holding weekly book clubs at the center, Second Chance Books puts on a number of programs for the youth at Gardner Betts. Carpenter has brought several authors to speak at the academy and host workshops, including Walter Dean Meyers, Neal Shusterman and Helen Hemphill. Local author Spike Gillespie has hosted multiple writing workshops with the program.
"In my own experience, one of the things that helped me through a troubled childhood was to read and immerse myself in books," Gillespie said. "Here they have access to both escapism and education. I try to inspire them to write and express themselves. Just because you've hit a hurdle, doesn't mean you can't have success."
In addition to author visits, Second Chance Books brings a variety of special events to Gardner Betts, including presentations on Capoeira - Brazilian dance fighting - tae kwon do and Japanese drumming.
"We're trying to open their minds a little bit," Carpenter said. "These are things most of these kids have never been exposed to."
It's been several years since Carpenter first received that unwelcome phone call from the principal of her son's junior high school. And as the youth at Gardner Betts have benefitted from Second Chance Books, so has she.
"The opportunity to bring literature into their world and expose them to so many possibilities is such a gift," she said. "I've learned that there's no such thing as 'those kids.' These are our kids."
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