D8 News & Record, Sunday, May 4, 2014
FEATURES
TIME IN THE YARN
Hoskins
had knack
A knitting class teaches prisoners about putting others first for lovable
tough guy
B M L II
The Washington Post
JESSUP, Md. In a library room with bare
shelves, Lynn Zwerling
dumped balls of yarn, needles and scissors onto two
folding tables and sat down
to knit with her class.
A new student entered
the room: peach fuzz on
his chin, temple fade haircut, wearing a gray Department of Corrections
sweater. As he sat across
from his 20 classmates,
Reggie Della, 55, told him
to “pick up some yarn and
needles. Then you can be a
knitting homie, too.”
At Dorsey Run Correctional Facility in Jessup,
one of the most popular
recreational programs is a
weekly Thursday afternoon
knitting class created by
Zwerling, 69, designed to
teach more than two dozen
inmates discipline, empathy, patience and a professional work ethic through
the slow, quiet practice of
turning balls of yarn into
colorful creations.
For the instructors and
the students, it’s more than
just another activity to help
prisoners pass away the
weeks, months and years.
“This isn’t about knitting. This is resocialization,” said Zwerling, who
created the program after
picking up the practice
soon after she retired.
To help impart life lessons, Zwerling and her
co-teachers structure the
class with exacting rules:
To be a member, every
student must sign an attendance sheet to encourage
accountability. Profanity,
racial slurs, off-color jokes
and nicknames are prohibited. Students are banned
if they break any of the
rules, and the men are prohibited from missing three
classes in a row unless they
are sick or observing a religious holiday.
“They appreciate being
more than a number or a
nickname,” Zwerling said.
“They appreciate us learning their individuality.
They like the civility of the
group.”
And perhaps the last rule
is one of the most important: Every new classmate
must tell someone they’ve
hurt or disappointed about
their weekly practice and
eventually knit that person
a hat.
“I’m going to tell my
mother,” said a young student whose name wasn’t
cleared for publication by
the facility.
In many cases, Zwerling is the closest thing to
a maternal ﬁgure the students have at Dorsey Run,
a minimum-security federal prison of 500 men. Indeed, part of the program’s
intent is to instill a sense
of giving. The hats Zwerling’s students make are
donated to a nearby charity and Baltimore City public school students every
winter.
“That’s their opportunity
to be empathic. They say
to themselves, ‘I used to
be that kid going to school
without a hat,’ ” said Zwerling, a woman of average height with short gray
hair and dark glasses who
wears her own handmade
clothes. “I think the lack of
empathy is a major reason
we have criminals. If that
was heavily reinforced, I
think it’d make a major difference.”
The ﬁrst hats the students make are for their
loved ones — mothers,
children, signiﬁcant others.
So when the letters aren’t
mailed and the visits aren’t
as frequent, they’re still remembered for the hat that
took weeks or months to
perfect.
Percell Arrington, 42,
made hats for his two sons
— one burgundy and gold
for the Redskins and the
other navy and silver for
the Cowboys. Meanwhile,
William Bright’s ﬁrst two
hats were for his signiﬁcant other.
“I’ve learned a lot of patience from Lynn, and knitting helps me relax,” said
Bright, 45, who was arrested for robbery in 2012.
A self-proclaimed knit-
persisted for ﬁve years.
“Lynn wouldn’t quit;
she’s a force to be reckoned with.”
That doesn’t stop
guards and other ofﬁcials
from watching the program with a careful eye.
The guards count everything — every skein and
ball of yarn, every pair of
needles and every pair of
scissors.
Security personnel
were worried that the
students might steal the
needles and use them as
weapons.
“Friends don’t steal
from friends,” Zwerling
would tell her students.
“Then they’ll carefully
explain to us that they
are not thieves.”
Since Zwerling’s project has grown, other
prisons have expressed
interest in knitting programs. Similar programs
have appeared at the
Saginaw Correctional Facility in Freeland, Mich.,
and the Blaine Street
Women’s Jail in Santa
Cruz, Calif.
“I sat in with the
group, to see it for myself,” said Dionne Randolph, Dorsey Run’s
current administrator.
“It was an excellent idea.
Any differences or biases
they have (are) checked
at the door.”
The instructors admit
that their efforts don’t
work overnight. They attempt to instill exercises
that encourage patience.
Beginners ﬁrst learn to
make a swatch, and they
keep a piece of yarn in
their pockets.
Zwerling says she asks
them when they are angry to tug on the swatch
and remember her. Remember that making one
PHOTOS BY BILL O’LEARY/The Washington Post
mistake will keep them
Lynn Zwerling, Lea Hiers and Sheila Rovelstad leave the prison after holding a Knitting Behind
away from her and knitBars, a weekly knitting class for oﬀenders at the Dorsey Run correctional facility in Jessup, Md.
ting permanently. Remember who they are
hatched a plan to share her knitting for: their chilnewfound love of knitting
dren, their wives, the
with people who dealt with kids without hats to wear
stress and tension regunext winter.
larly.
Mark Stapleton, 48, of
“Whose population
Taneytown, Md., said he
would really enjoy somewas mocked by other stuthing that calmed them
dents about his participadown, that made them feel tion in the class.
good?” Rovelstad said.
“Some guy would say,
“When you go to prison,
‘You’re knitting? That’s
it’s like you’re put on hold. for girls.’ Later, that
The rest of the world goes
same guy is sitting next
on without you. It’s like a
to me in class,” he said.
pause button.”
Stapleton was released
But getting the facility to from prison last year
trust the program wasn’t
after serving time for
easy. Margaret Chippenmoney laundering.
dale was the administraHe now knits for his
tor of Dorsey Run who
children and for those
approved the program in
at a hospital in Carroll
2009. She saw it as an opCounty.
portunity at what she calls
He said he learned the
“restorative justice.” The
lessons of empathy and
prison’s other recreational responsibility and noted
Lea Hiers models a ﬁnished hat during Knitting Behind Bars.
programs and employeethat many of his fellow
students couldn’t wait for
Students make hats that are given to someone the inmate has readiness workshop programs only beneﬁt the
their weekly classes to
hurt or disappointed; others are donated to charity.
individual, she said.
begin.
By knitting, the students
“We’d started getting
ting evangelist, Zwerling’s lieves the individual has
are putting their families
a little rowdy” when the
activism began in the 1960s the potential to impact soand children in need ﬁrst.
guards would sometimes
when she marched as a
ciety.”
“That piece of it — doing delay the classes for sepeacenik.
A car saleswoman for
it for others and being self- curity reasons, he said.
“We’re wayward women 18 years, Zwerling learned less — sold me,” she said.
“We wanted to start knitand misguided hippies,”
how to knit by watch“At the time, I was look- ting.”
Zwerling said of herself
ing YouTube videos. She
ing for additional programand fellow instructors
met Rovelstad and Hiers
ming for my students,”
Sheila Rovelstad, 63, an
through knitting groups
Chippendale said.
artist from Columbia, Md., she formed on Meetup, a
She had her reservations
and Lea Hiers, 64, a MARC social-networking site for
— as did ofﬁcials at other
train operations clerk from people with similar interprisons — about needles
Laurel, Md. “We come
ests to convene.
and scissors being brought
from a generation that beWith their help, Zwerling into prison, but Zwerling
B J L
The Associated Press
LONDON Bob Hoskins
never lost his Cockney accent, even as he became a
global star who charmed
and alarmed audiences in a
vast range of roles.
Short and bald, with a
face he once compared
to “a squashed cabbage,”
Hoskins was a remarkably
versatile performer. As a
London gangster in “The
Long Good Friday,” he
moved from bravura bluster to tragic understatement. In “Who Framed
Roger Rabbit,” he cavorted
with a cast of animated
characters, making technological trickery seem
seamless and natural.
A family statement
Wednesday said Hoskins
died in a hospital the night
before after a bout of pneumonia. He was 71 and had
been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2012.
Helen Mirren, who
starred with Hoskins in
“The Long Good Friday,”
called him “a great actor and an even greater
man. Funny, loyal, instinctive, hard-working, with
that inimitable energy that
seemed like a spectacular
ﬁrework rocket just as it
takes off.”
“I personally will miss
him very much, London
will miss one of her best
and most loving sons, and
Britain will miss a man to
be proud of,” Mirren said.
The 5-foot-6 Hoskins
was built like a bullet and
specialized in tough guys
with a soft center, including the ex-con who chaperones Cathy Tyson’s escort
in Neil Jordan’s 1986 ﬁlm
“Mona Lisa.” He was nominated for a best-actor Academy Award for the role.
His breakout Hollywood
role was as a detective investigating cartoon crime
in “Who Framed Roger
Rabbit,” a tribute to hardboiled 1940s entertainment
that was one of the ﬁrst
major movies to meld animation and live action. The
1988 Robert Zemeckis ﬁlm
was a huge global success
that won three Oscars and
helped revive animated
ﬁlmmaking.
Born in 1942 in eastern
England, where his mother
had moved to escape wartime bombing, Hoskins was
raised in a working-class
part of north London. He
left school at 15, worked
at odd jobs — yes, he was
a circus ﬁre-eater — and
claimed he got his break as
an actor by accident: While
watching a friend audition,
he was handed a script and
asked to read.
“I got the lead in the
play,” Hoskins told the
BBC in 1988. “I’ve never
been out of work since.”
He is survived by his
wife, Linda, and children
Alex, Sarah, Rosa and
Jack.