P&R editorial

(Reprint from NRPA January 1972 Parks & Recreation Magazine)

PARKS, RECREATION, AND ATTICA

THE AGONY of Attica is far from over.

Its aftermath will not only include a bewildering mixture of more repression, honest attempts to improve prison conditions, probing investigations, unfair criticism, and unthinking whitewash but also a lingering reality that the events of Attica are likely to be repeated in other places.

Many questions are asked, and few answers are yet available concerning causes and responsibilities. One thing is clear, however. Prisons and prisoners need a great deal of reform and help. We think the parks and recreation professional has an unfilled opportunity and unfulfilled responsibility in prison and prisoner reform.

According to a 1970 study by the U. S. Department of Justice, 86 percent of the more than 3,300 jails in the United States in communities of 25,000 and up provide no facilities or opportunities for recreation.

What has the park and recreation profession done about this? During the Attica upheaval the nation was witness to the agonized cry of one of the prisoners: "If we cannot live as men, we will die as men."

This earnest appeal for identity from the lips of men whose desperation led them to the brink of self-destruction is an acute form of the same identity crisis that grips so much of America today. People are striving in increasingly impersonal and hostile work and neighborhood environments for a sense of individuality; to be a name and a person, not a number; to be regarded as a man or woman, not as a thing. The park and recreation profession has the opportunity and the responsibility to help people find themselves and that sense of personal dignity by which they preserve their respect for each other. Deep in the squalor of the city's ghettos and in the blandness of the suburbs, as well as in our prisons, the struggle for human identity stands as a root cause of personal and civic discontent and even raw violence.

Recreation offers the only means by which man may find himself. Is the park and recreation profession ready to make a constructive effort to be a part of the solution to the identity crisis? Are we ready to make a strong national effort through which recreation opportunities and programs will be available to help in the reform of the penal system?

Are the doors open for men and women now in prison to find employment in the park and recreation field? Is recreation and park education ready to train people for work in prisons? How can park and recreation people help prevent other Atticas?

I.P.R.S. response

IPRS AWARE OF PROBLEM

The Illinois Park and Recreation Society . . . announces that the lines of communications are now open between the top officials of the Correctional Institutions of the State of Illinois and IPRS. This is the first step in the beginning process to correct the "unfulfilled responsibility" of the park and recreation professional on the prison and prisoner reform movement. The Illinois Park and Recreation Society is prepared to lead the way in initiating a movement where park and recreation professionals can play a key role in prison and prisoner reform.

Illinois Parks and Recreation    2    March/April, 1972