Grand Theft Auto

For some students, the school was designed to be a safe haven that got them away from the gangs and trouble that surrounded their home life. For some, judges gave them a choice to matriculate to the school or to be incarcerated. To this extent, some of the students did not serve time because of the school. However, there was one student who did not take advantage of his placement. He ended up leaving the program for the state prison the student was from.

For him, his return to the legal system started with careful observation. He watched the staff. He noticed that some staff did not do everything that they were supposed to do. Specifically, he noticed that one staff failed to lock the cabinet that contained the keys to the vehicles. One night, when that staff member, a staff member who did not patrol the hallway with regularity and a staff member that slacked off when it came to monitoring the cameras were working on the same night. He snuck out of bed, raided the cabinet for the key to a van, then made a sprint for the door and outside. He got in the van. In his defense, for not having a license, he did relatively well. He made his way to the highway and headed out of the state. However, he did not anticipate several factors that impeded his escape. His first problem was that he did not understand the difference between 95 and 495. Instead of heading out of state, he ended up in the outer suburbs of a large city. That was just the beginning of his demise. He didn’t have access to any money, which limits one's opportunities. He ran out of gas, without money, which made him stick out like a sore thumb.

Ironically, I had spent time with this student at his residence. He and his housemates had purchased some leisure time and were playing Grand Theft Auto. The odd part about that was their conversation while they were playing. They were reminiscing about things that they had done before they were in the program that were in the game. For example, one of them had been convicted of carjacking where they had pulled the person out of the car and beat on them before driving off. Unlike in the game, his conviction of Grand Theft Auto put him in prison after he was tried as an adult. Even though the students complained that the school was like a prison, they knew the difference. After his “transfer,” he had much more serious things to be concerned about. Prison is never a good option.

The hard part for me was that so much effort was put into turning things around, in the end failing with terrible results.