A program aimed at using art to help female jail inmates address mental health issues and reduce recidivism is being expanded to help men and the LGBTQ community.
Peace Love is a therapeutic art program. It was co-founded by an Ohio State graduate who's an artist and is intended to help those with mental illness. Dr. Patrice Palmer brought it into the Franklin County Jail, thinking the concept could be transformational for the inmates.
Peace Love has been a successful component of Pathways, a program to help reduce recidivism in female inmates with mental illness and addiction. It's now being expanded to men in the LGBTQ community. Cameras are also recording the program's success for a documentary.
“The art has a way of helping you to heal to get some things out then, to address some behaviors and thought processes,” said Dr. Palmer. “If we can restore the value, the dignity and the worth of a person, we return a more productive citizen back into society.”
The Pathways program as a whole is also expanding to the male population in jail.