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Franklin has been cleaning my classroom. Chatty fellow, always has a smile. He told me his father was born in 1903 in Mississippi, a sharecropper. Franklin’s in his sixties but looks about 20 years younger. He comes from a big family and has a sister who is 81. Today he said he’d bring in a photo of his parents to show me. It’s hard to imagine Franklin committing a crime or spending his days smoking crack.  He seems so at peace with himself  at this point in his life.

A parole agent once told me that men reach a certain age and their testosterone decreases and they no longer have the energy or stamina to run the streets. Essentially, biology itself reduces recidivism. When a twenty-something guy comes in and tells me he’s tired of running, this may be true, but hormones have a drive and momentum of their own.