Students' Jail Visit a Journey

A stay at the county jail won't make it on many bucket lists but there's a waiting list of kids who want to visit it.

School SRO Rose Cheever typically takes local school kids once a year to the Essex County House of Corrections in Middleton. But this year demand is up.

On Jan. 5, 40 high school kids boarded the bus for Middleton; and on Dec. 8, 15 students and 25 high school students made the trip.

Some students have made multiple visits.

Another trip is planned for March.

Some kids get an invitation to look hard at the hard life that is jail. Some kids ask to go on the tour to satisfy their curiosity.

Some parents won't allow their kids to visit the facility.

But for those who board the bus, the morning visit is an eye-opening experience, the SRO said.

The Middleton jail operates these tours for students, parents and teachers on a regular basis.

Each visit's goal is to encourage students to make right choices so they do not end up on the inside looking out.

Typcially, the kids are stunned and surprised at the harsh life they encounter.

Students see the jail yard, the barbed wire and the control room.

They hear first-hand from inmates due to be released soon that jail isn't a place the students want in their future.

Jail is bad food and lost time, they tell the students. It is getting up when told to get up, eating when told to eat, lining up when told to line up.

In December an inmate with a loud voice who spoke in blunt language told the students about jail life.

The kids were scared, Cheever said.

"It was perfect," she said.

Perfect because the message was plain and harsh, just like the daily routine in jail.

Inmates tell students that stealing from family, friends and anyone else to support their addiction to heroin or other drugs is what got them arrested and sentenced.

The students also learn that jail is a reality for anyone who earns a ticket there after the age of 17.

On the last visit students noticed a former Swampscott resident among the population of inmates.

It surprised many of the kids to see a person there from their hometown.

Some of the kids have questions. Some of them want to know what the inmates are going to do differently when they get out of jail so they do not return?

Some inmates will say they are going to stay clean and sober and work their drug and alcohol addiction programs.

One fellow said he was going to stay clean for his young family, so he could support them.

For Cheever, the trip is about persuading the kids that they do not want to wind up in that kind of a predicament.

It is about prevention, opting out of drugs and stearing clear of behavior that can land them in the criminal justice system, she said.

Time will tell whether the message will take for all the students.

But it is clear they hear the message, clear that the visit makes an impression on them.

In the jail some students are stunned and quiet.

On the bus ride back to Swampscott, Cheever hears them talking about their visit. 

The last ride home some of the conversation centered on the Swampscott guy they saw in jail.

The students were really surprised that it had happened to him.

They wouldn't have believed it had they not seen it.