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PYHIT Gas and Oil Article
Gas & Oil (British on-line magazine), 5th issue, 06/30/00
'We're not going to start the wedding until I can get this drunk off the foot pedals of the organ!' the priest said. 'He's sound asleep, and he's a big guy. You're bigger than I am, so you go up and get him off.' I went up and nudged the man. He didn't budge, so I gave him a good slap across the face. The congregation downstairs in the pews looked up at me; they didn't see him. He let loose with a few words that would make a sailor blush." This is how Peter Young, then a new assistant priest, remembers beginning his duties in the South End of Albany, New York's state capital, in the 1950s.
Drug and alcohol addiction were major problems among the men who sought shelter in the church's large gymnasium that was made available after it closed at nine o'clock each evening. In those golden years of the American Dream alcoholism was defined as a crime, so anyone showing up at a hospital for assistance was subject to immediate arrest. Peter Young was convinced it was a disease. He fought a ten-year battle to have the law changed so that alcoholics could be treated instead of incarcerated. His appointment as chaplain to the New York Senate gave him the access to lawmakers that ultimately made it possible for rehabilitation to replace incarceration.
For thirty-three years, Father Young worked in the prisons, setting up rehabilitation programs that have helped literally thousands of people take their first steps toward recovery from addictions. But as prisoners were released, he heard them say, "I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go." Recovery programs, Father Young realized, were not enough. Upon release, the majority of inmates would indeed have no home to go to and no job to provide for their needs. Who would employ someone with a five-year prison record? All too often, these men would fall back into old habits, and find themselves behind bars yet again.
Pondering the problem, Peter Young, an old Navy man, recollected how the pilot of an incoming plane needed multiple aids, even visual direction, to make a safe landing on an aircraft carrier rocking in a stormy sea. Didn't these ex-cons also need a variety of aids to insure their "safe landing" in our turbulent society? Yes, they needed rehabilitation, but they also needed a home. And they needed meaningful work. So Father Young set about providing all three. This "three-legged stool," as he calls it, offers addicted men and women a chance to become healthy, employed citizens. It gives them what is often their first chance at a career, family, friends, and-perhaps most important-a future.
The recovery programs Father Young began in the prison system continue today. The mentors, themselves often former addicts who have been through the program, are the "wounded healers" who can best help the "new guys"-those still suffering and depressed. When a mentor tells the new guys, "Once an addict, always an addict," the new guys pay attention. The message is simple: "You have to keep away from that stuff! It's your decision; there's help here if you want it. I am a living example." The men look out for each other. If one becomes withdrawn, others will ask him what's up-before he relapses.
In answer to the men's frustration at having "nowhere to go," Father Young has developed a housing program. Simple yet pleasant, these apartment dwellings have been created by remodeling derelict buildings. Where possible, a whole block is renovated so that the community can retain control over it. Apartments are rented out to those in the program at a low rent, but with conditions that allow supervision as a protection.
Essential to helping a person regain dignity, Father Young believes, is making sure that person has work, some means of contributing. He has overseen the establishment of an amazing vocational training program, which offers a wide array of occupations, to prepare students for the job market and a future career. Father Young's efforts have spawned (among other things) a construction company, a cleaners, daycare centers, restaurants, and cafes. Graduate chefs from Father Young's culinary program are in demand nationwide.
These programs aren't just for men, either. There's a home for mothers and children, staffed by women who were once addicts themselves. Eleanor House provides a home for mothers who have spent years in prison away from their children. Here they can bond anew with their children and learn parenting skills. As Eleanor House resident Miranda says, "My life was given back to me, and it made me a responsible mother. The staff never gave up on me."
Does Peter Young's program work? A ten year study by the New York State University School of Criminal Justice shows that (of those who complete the program) there is 8% recidivism. Compare that to the statement Attorney General Janet Reno recently made that of the 628,000 who are released from prison every year, 62% will be back in within 90 days.
As one man said, "It is like a revolving door: you get out and you go back in. But in this program, you know you are in it for the long haul. You are among people who have made it. They look out for you, and you are given a home and training for a job. If you want it, your life can be given back to you."
On the basis of cost alone, legislators could be expected to fund a program which costs less than incarceration and which rehabilitates ex-prisoners and makes them useful members of society. Unfortunately this is not so. The politically popular cry of "lock 'em up!" as a cure for crime and the attractive economic rewards of having a prison complex built in a community often outweigh both reason and compassion.
Peter Young's program is struggling to survive. Yet this does not deter him from responding to every need that comes his way-AIDS patients, people coming out of a coma and suffering brain damage, stranded visitors from abroad.
Here is truly a candle of hope lit in the darkness of our punitive and uncaring society. It must not be extinguished.
("Gas and Oil" is located at www.plough.com/uk/gasandoil)