When imagining what prisoners do with the the time they spend behind bars, there are a number of images that usually come to mind. Some people envision the incarcerated writing and reading letters from loved ones outside the prison walls. Others might see these prisoners lifting weights in the prison yard, excercising away the remainder of their sentence. Still others might imagine an inmate pouring through law journals and case law books, searching desperately for some information that might overturn their conviction.
Knitting, however, is probably not one of those images.
National Public Radio recently featured an interview with Lynn Zwerling, a Maryland woman who has introduced a weekly, two-hour knitting class at the Jessup Correctional Institute outside of Baltimore. Although the idea originally met with resistance from prison officials, there is now a waiting list for inmates wanting to participate.
“Comfort dolls” produced by the class have been given to first responders in the Baltimore area to give to children – specifically when responding to calls of domestic abuse. Other inmates have knit gifts to give to their own children, and in some cases have brought their broken families closer together.
The full interview (transcript and audio) is available here.