Class focuses on how crime impacts victims
Indianapolis, Ind. - At the end of the 14-week class she teaches, Putnamville Correctional Facility Caseworker Lauren Orme hopes that she has helped tell the story of how crime impacts victims and changed some minds.
For the last 3 years, Orme has led classes twice a year of about 50 offenders at her facility in the Bridges to Life restorative justice victim impact program. Every time, she sees the change in the offenders enrolled in the class, realizing how the choices they have made have impacted others around them.
“A lot of offenders say they don’t have a victim, but that’s not true. You can be a victim, your family is a victim because you aren’t there to support them,” Orme said.
She already has several success stories, and her class is in high demand, with a wait list of more than 300 offenders wanting to enroll in the program the next time it’s offered, she said.
The course focuses on multiple concepts, including responsibility, accountability, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and restitution. One impactful activity is when offenders write letters to their victims. They don’t send the letters; they keep them. But the exercise teaches them a lot, Orme said.
“There are lot of tears as part of this class, it gets very emotional,” Orme said.
As the course goes on, Orme notices the impacts as attitudes change and offenders become more engaged in the work. She remembers one offender that took the class who began as someone with behavioral problems and transformed into a mentor for others – a change his family noticed.
“He went from being a guy I could not stand in my dormitory to being one of my favorite guys in my dormitory,” Orme said.
She has also seen that programs like this often have an impact on recidivism rates of those who complete them, after they are released. She often tells the offenders that being sorry isn’t enough; they have to change their actions to prove they are truly sorry for what they did.
“These guys are going to go out and be our neighbors, I want them to be good neighbors, I want them to go out and not reoffend so they can be good neighbors,” Orme said.
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