3rd Trip to Bon Air

This time at the prison felt like a whole different experience without Professor Dolson there. As much as we love having her come with us :), the guys seemed to be a lot more open in not only their conversation, but their body language as well. On the way back, I said that it was probably because there was no “authority figure” there. While Professor Dolson is not an dominating and aggressive adult, my partner had told me about how he had dealt with a lot of that stuff at home. It was probably comforting to be able to just talk as a group without having to worry about an adult watching over them.

Aside from our overall group conversations, my one-on-one conversations have been improving with Shanard each week. He seems to open up to me more about his life at home before prison. He told me about the best day of his life was his last day at home, he just hadn’t realized it until he ended up in prison. It did seem like a sensitive topic, so I would try to keep the questions light. One thing I did notice is that Shanard seems to be very interested in classes and college life. To me, it sounded like all he knew about college was from movies and had some very unrealistic notions of what it is like. He was so intrigued when I debunked a lot of his misconceptions and told him that Richmond was indeed a very academically driven school.

In the three short sessions we’ve had with our partners, my group and I all agree that our partners are very open with us and really enjoy the program. I find that is it a good way to relieve stress for the both us to be able to talk to someone who won’t judge us and only wants to have a conversation.