Photo by: Joe Crimmings, The Journal Times
An Unexpected End
Despite the program’s success, Shailor took a four-year break after he and his wife had a baby. But in 2012, he was ready and eager to pick up where he had left off, and he submitted a proposal to reinstate the program. It was discussed thoroughly for 75 minutes among administrative staff at Racine Correctional Institution before the project was finally approved to resume.
Rehearsals for the production of Hamlet were scheduled to begin Sept. 4. Shailor went forward with obtaining a classroom, bringing in textbooks and renewing his necessary volunteer training—which turned out not to be as necessary as he had thought.
He had been eager for the coming of a new crop of program participants, but what came first was a rejection letter. Shailor had applied for a grant to help offset supply costs for the program. Just days before rehearsals were to begin, he received word from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections that they would not provide him with a letter of support for the grant. Determined to go through with the program regardless, Shailor went back to step one. He offered to run the program without the grant, but no longer received approval at RCI, leaving him with just one question: Why?
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections says The Shakespeare Prison Project does not fit within its current “evidence-based programming” initiative. DOC Representative Tim LeMonds says the initiative requires evidence showing programs are effective in helping offenders reintegrate into society. Regardless of whether a program is popular among inmates, statistical data must prove the program has potential to reduce recidivism, or relapse into crime. Qualitative data hold little weight in the argument.
“And that’s sort of our focus is to pool all of our energy and all of our resources into those programs that evidence shows actually work,” says LeMonds. “There’s just simply not enough information to show us that this is an effective program.”
Like LeMonds, RCI Warden Jon Paquin also stresses the importance of evidence-based programming and its role in reducing recidivism. Though he was not working at the facility during the program’s initial operation, he has heard positive feedback about The Shakespeare Prison Project. Even so, Paquin follows the DOC’s lead in supporting those programs statistically proven to aid in reintegration. Shailor was not completely satisfied with this argument.
“Now that all makes perfect sense,” Shailor says. “But for somebody who really wants to do this work, there are burning questions, like why doesn’t this have something to do with reentry and reintegration.”
The Resounding Effects
Shailor’s passion extends far beyond the countless hours he has spent volunteering within prison walls, as he has also published multiple articles and book chapters on prison theater. His research has highlighted both statistical and anecdotal examples of how arts and humanities, theater and specifically Shakespeare theater programming all have concrete, beneficial effects and can reduce recidivism rates. Through interviews with inmates, evaluation forms and tracking participants after release, Shailor has gathered evidence to support the program.
In addition, one similar 17-year-old Shakespeare theater program in Kentucky indicated the recidivism rate of their participants at 6 percent, as opposed to the 65 percent recidivism rate nationally and the 34 percent recidivism rate for the Kentucky Department of Corrections. Shailor created a petition detailing these statistics and many more to highlight the benefits of his program.
In one four-day span, 450 signatures had already been collected. And along with it came countless words of praise from arts facilitators, educators, former wardens, people with children in prison, formerly incarcerated individuals and ordinary citizens. And one comment from Nicholas Leair of Merrill, Wis.
It read, “The positive effect this program had on me cannot be measured. It helped me bring a better understanding of myself as an individual. It gave me a greater depth of empathy toward my victims. It showed me a path of life that involved a positive outlet. Art heals the soul and enriches lives.”
Leair spoke of the abrupt end to the program with concern and disappointment. He immediately recalled receiving his initial 30-year sentence. Leair would have had to transfer from Racine Correctional Institution to a minimum-security facility to receive parole and an earlier release date. In January 2007, he was finally granted a security override for the transfer—right in the middle of The Shakespeare Prison Project.
“I did everything I could to withhold any type of movement to go to minimum security so that I could finish the performance,” Leair says. “The project means too much and meant too much to me to abandon it, and to hear that it’s been banned from the prison system is detrimental to society.”
He and a handful of others postponed their potential release and remained in prison longer to finish the production of the play, reflecting just how much the project meant to them.
“I think in order to make society a better place we need to focus sometimes on people who do some of the worst things,” Leair says. “To take away something that can help better those people I think does an injustice to the victims, and it just saddens me to think that this program can’t continue to go forward.”
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