P.B.H. Plans To Increase Prison Work

PBH volunteers are working with "sexually dangerous persons," the criminally insane, and defective delinquents at Bridgewater Prison. The students serve as gym instructors, classroom teachers, and, in the case of the Radcliffe volunteers, interviewers.

These volunteers will visit the prison, officially known as the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Bridgewater, once a week. Each student will have his own class, and for one hour he will be in charge of his own group of men.

Subjects range from music appreciation to mathematics, and the size of the classes varies from four to 20. The girls, who will not be teaching, will interview the men in the alcoholics department and the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, attempting to learn more about their backgrounds, and helping the Institution to complete its records.

Danger Minimal

Danger to volunteers is minimal, according to Raymond R. Gilbert, Deputy Commissioner of Correction. "The kinds of people generally considered dangerous usually abuse children. In ordinary social contacts, they are extremely passive. These are not the dangerous maniacal types that one sees in the movies."

The student leaders of the program, Peter A. Flynn '63, and Richard L. Levine 53, both stressed the safety factor to volunteers. "If we thought there was any danger, we would never send students there. PBH owes a duty to its volunteers."

Concurring in this was Charles W. Saughan '37, Superintendent of M.C.I. Bridgewater. "We would never let students in if there were any danger. There are some dangerous men, but the students will never get near them."

"We have to be sure of whom we're using," Flynn, chairman of the committee, stated. "We have an extensive interview system which we've been using to select volunteers. We're very pleased with the results." Fifty persons have been selected from more than 250 who applied for places on this year's Prisons committee.

"No Axe to Grind"

"We're trying to let the men know," said Flynn, "that society has not thrown them away. We're student volunteers, and our men know it; we have no axe to grind. We're doing the job because we want to, and in this lies our real value to the patients."

PBH now works in all five of the Massachusetts state prisons, and has for the last eight years taught classes. This expansion of the Committee into Bridgewater and non-academic subjects is the most recent innovation. "We're not finished yet," said Flynn.