ABSTRACT
On the first night it’s always the same. When my friend Bert and I arrive at the classroom around 7:20 p.m., a few of our new students have gotten there before us, anxious not to miss their chance to cut six months off their probation time. Sometimes they’ll be in little groups of two or three, but more often they’ll be sitting alone, usually in the back of the room, where years of schooling have taught them to hide from the teacher’s eye. At 7:30 the probation officers arrive, right on time. By a quarter to eight there are at least fifteen of us in the room—two teachers, two probation officers, and, depending on our luck in recruitment, a dozen or so men on probation from the Dorchester District Court, Boston’s most active criminal court.
