• Targeted Conditions

• Theory of Change

Targeted Conditions
Our client base is made up of youth with the following risk factors (Negative influences on youth that
cause them to be at risk of dangerous or destructive behaviors):
• A destructive or non-existent home life.
• Past victims of abuse.
• Poverty.
• Gang affiliation.
• Drug abuse.
• Underperforming schools or school drop outs.
• Racial/territorial tensions from the environment.
• Peer pressure and family pressures to participate in illegal or irresponsible activities.
• Low self esteem and no positive identity.
• No sense of belonging outside of negative groups such as gangs.
• No sense of achievement in positive areas.

The following are the conditions our program is designed to address. These are the protective factors (Conditions that buffer youth from exposure to risk factors by reducing the risk or changing the way youth respond to it.):
• A sense of belonging to a positive group made up of youth and adults of other races and backgrounds. This replaces a need for a gang and eases racial conflicts.
• A place where that experience can carry on into the community after the youth leave the juvenile institutions. This helps replace a non-existent home life or the temptation to return to gang life.
• A positive experience on stage that provides a “natural high.”
• A program that addresses the state standards for performing arts and can help them with attaining their GED and going on to college in the arts.
• An environment that teaches cultural awareness and opens participant’s perspectives on race and gangs.
• Positive peer pressure to participate in responsible and rewarding activities that provide a future and drive to succeed in participants.
• New self-esteem and positive identity as an artist and creative individual and member of an ensemble cast.
• A sense of achievement in positive areas of a participant’s life.

Outcomes (Intermediate Effects on The Participants):
• Reduced levels of violence while incarcerated thereby making incarceration easier for both staff and wards.
• Changes in participants attitudes towards peers of other races and gang affiliations.
• Changes in attitude towards staff and authority figures.
• Sense of pride and self-esteem as creative individuals.
• Social Consciousness- understanding through ensemble theatre that each of us is part of a larger whole.
• Empowerment and goal setting.

Impacts (Long Term Effects The Program Is Designed to Achieve):
• Participants renounce violence as a way of life.
• Participants remain open to new ideas, learning and people of different races and backgrounds.
• Maturity in response to authority, rules and the law.
• Growing confidence in one’s own abilities.
• Growing social consciousness with a need to give back to the community.
• Achievement of personal goals such as attaining a GED, college, a trade, continuing in the arts, etc.

Theory of Change

Through The Unusual Suspects (US) theatre program of 12 weeks, youth spend time in an ensemble cast working on a production with peers of different races and gang affiliations, and with adults in a supportive role. Through this experience a world is opened to them of creativity; new thoughts about adults and their peers; and pride of accomplishment. Through remaining involved outside of the institution while on probation or parole, participants can reconnect with the program and continue a journey of transformation into artists, thinkers, and instruments of change. They can then set goals, achieve them and become mentors for the next generation.

The Arts In Corrections Model: A Case For Arts Programming Behind Bars
Arts In Corrections started as a pilot program at California State Prisons in 1980. In 1983, a cost/benefit analysis was done by Dr. Lawrence Brewster, Sociology Professor at California State University at San Jose. He found that the prison arts program reduced incidents of violence within the prison by 75-81% and saved close to double the cost of the program in measurable benefits such as security and medical costs. By 1987, it was proven that the program lowered recidivism rates by 51% at a cost of $19/per class hour for each student (*see below). There is now an Arts In Corrections program in every prison in the state funded by legislative line item in the California Department of Corrections Budget. (No such program exists in youth corrections.)

- Research documented in the book
“Arts In Other Spaces”
by William Cleveland (1992)

*Our cost in 2004 is approximately $17/per class hour for each student given that a program for 20 students with 24 3-hour sessions is $24,000. With 5% annual inflation, the Arts In Corrections program listed above from 1987 would cost more than $40/per hour for each student today.
 

BACK TO TOP