Innovative program bridges gap between police and youths

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By Philip L. Watness, Leader Staff Writer

The kids were scared, but so were the cops. 

They were to spend a full week together agonizing over the details of that nightmare invention of literature – poetry.

Not just any old poetry, either. Not the romanticism of a Shelley or Burns, but the self-exploration of a Sylvia Plath. 

And they were to get along during the five days of sessions at Fort Worden State Park during October 2001. These were the suspicious gendarmes accustomed to nabbing the juvenile offenders now sitting across the table from them. These were the untrusting youths wary of any contact with the men and women in blue.

But the icy resolve of both factions melted in the hard work of writing poetry. Both sides expressed that they had learned something of the other.

That was the point – to see one another as humans, not as police officers and juvenile delinquents. By all accounts, the goal was won.

A year and a half later, the cops and kids are making another foray into that wilderness between generations, attitudes and professions. The "Connecting Chord: Police and Communities Unite" program created by Port Townsend poet Christine Hemp will once more bring together high school kids who have been in trouble with the law, and the police officers whose duty is to arrest them. 

Connecting Chord will run Feb. 17-21 at Fort Worden State Park, with three police officers from the Port Townsend Police Department and six teenagers. The week will once more culminate in a recitation of their week's work during a poetry reading at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 21 at Port Townsend High School, a free event open to the public.

Second time around

The participants will have the benefit of the experience of their colleagues in 2001 – either teen peer group members or fellow officers – in addition to Hemp's facilitation. But they'll also benefit from someone who was there the first time through: Port Townsend High School sophomore Sarah McDonough, 16. Hemp asked McDonough to work particularly with her teen peers in crafting poetry to bridge the authority gap.

McDonough didn't go into the specifics of the crime that placed her under juvenile services supervision, but said, "I just got expelled from Chimacum [High School] for pulling a stupid prank."

The goal of the program isn't to set pre-criminals on the path to civil behavior, Hemp said, but in McDonough's case, it probably helped. 

"I want to be a police officer, which is funny," McDonough said. "I want to work with kids. I've been in their shoes and I know how they feel. I think I could help a lot."

Policing seems a doable thing, but writing poetry daunts the teen. 

"I think I'll have to sit down within the next week and try writing some poetry and try to get a taste for it again," she said.

She recalled that fall day in 2001 when she sat across a table from police officers. She was there for getting into trouble, but the cops weren't there to send her down. 

"The teenage thing is they're out to get you," she said, "but they're people, too. They were scared of us. They didn't want to be there any more than us. They were grumpy. They thought it was stupid. And I thought, 'You guys are acting like us.'"

Police involvement

Port Townsend Police Chief Kristen Anderson has been seeking donations to fund the program's $7,500 cost. She's keeping her fingers crossed that she'll receive $3,500 from a state fund for reducing underage drinking, and she welcomes any other donations. She has also raised several thousand dollars through private, business and philanthropic donations. 

Anderson said that most of the six youths who participated in the first Connecting Chord program had not stayed out of trouble, but that doesn't mean the program isn't worthwhile.

"I wouldn't be jumping though all the hoops – I'm doing a lot of fundraising in addition to my job – if I didn't believe in the value of this program," Anderson said. "The goal is not to keep kids out of trouble. I see it as part of a lot of other activities and resources, and the net effect would hopefully be that kids would stay out of trouble."

Anderson participated in the first program, along with officers Eric Franz and Troy Surber and county probation officer Jim Singleton. She said her colleagues didn't relish sitting with teens to write poems, but their attitudes changed by the end of the week. She said one officer stated that the workshop helped him see the kids with their own hopes and dreams. It also brought Anderson new insights into several men she supervises.

"I saw sides of my coworkers that I didn't know existed, and it was heartening to see how they tried," she said. "The beginning of the week was hard, but they really did work at it. I felt it was very encouraging to see that they really do care."

She said the kids got the opportunity to see police officers as fellow humans instead of adversaries.

"I found out that poetry is a powerful medium for self-expression," she said. "A lot of the kids learned a lot of skills – not just writing, but communicating – and they were able to be listened to by adults and be heard."

Program goals

Connecting Chord's creator, poet Christine Hemp, said she witnessed emotional growth and intellectual understanding during the 2001 workshop. 

"It's real, not pretend," Hemp said. "Poetry has a way of stripping people down to who they really are. The officers were terrified to show weakness. But I promised that this isn't an encounter session. We always go back to the writing. It's also not psychology. The whole point is to make something. Making poems is to make something outside of themselves."

The workshop does the same thing for the kids – with the added bonus that it's neither school nor detention. 

"It's not punishment and it's not school," Hemp said. "They are chosen to do a different kind of adventure. The point is not poetry but to participate because they were chosen because their probation officers thought they could really contribute."

Not a panacea

Jefferson County Juvenile Services Director Barbara Carr has selected another six kids to participate in this program, just as she picked the first six, including McDonough. She has no illusions that the Connecting Chord workshop will create law-abiding young people. She admits nearly all of the first group got back into trouble at some time during the past year and a half.

"My view is that every opportunity that a kid has to start and complete a project and feel they have succeeded is a good thing," Carr said. "Some of these kids haven't had a lot of experience with that."

Carr also said she sees value in the teens working together with adults, especially police officers. 

"They work together as kids and link to adults and police officers in such a way that they've never ever had an opportunity to do," she said. "The effect is cumulative. I don't think you pull one thing out with a kid and say, 'This made the difference.' Different things affect people differently."

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