NYT story on a diner approach to juvenile justice

NYT piece today (link here) is a good piece of reporting on an unusual idea in criminal justice reform. I think the holistic element here is a nice idea. Teaching young people how to appreciate old diner cars, how to create value, how to manage a business. It seems like a worthy approach to juvenile reform and a worthy social enterprise idea. -pg

Youthful Offenders Restoring Luster to Diners of Old

By PAM BELLUCK

CRANSTON, R.I. — Classic American diners are dinosaurs these days. Many of them, anyway.

…

Now, some defunct diners are getting a new lease on life from an unlikely source: young people in jail.

Behind the razor wire at Rhode Island’s juvenile detention center, teenage offenders are restoring four vintage diners that have been brought there by preservationists for the New Hope Diner Project.

This fall, the first restored diner, Hickey’s, should open in Rhode Island, with some of the teenagers working the griddles and the cash register, and even preparing to manage the restaurant someday.

“The whole poetry behind it is that these are kids who have been pretty much cast away emotionally and criminally, getting a chance to restore beloved eateries that have been cast off from society, too,” said Daniel Zilka, the acting director of the American Diner Museum, who rescues decrepit diners and helps run the project. “If they continue on the path that they’ve been moving upon they would end up in an adult correctional facility. This is probably their last opportunity.”