Reintegration, Community Building, and Revitalization: An Examination of the Community Arts and Reintegration Project

• DOI: 10.1177/0032885519861083
• Author: Timothy J. Holler
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Date: 01 September 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885519861083

The Prison Journal

2019, Vol. 99(4S) 118S –134S

© 2019 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0032885519861083

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Article

Reintegration,

Community Building,

and Revitalization:

An Examination of the

Community Arts and

Reintegration Project

Timothy J. Holler1

Note: A video link is available for viewing the program highlights:

https://www.greensburg.pitt.edu/cfar/carp

Abstract

The Community Arts and Reintegration Project in Westmoreland County,

Pennsylvania, is a community and restorative justice–based mural arts

program. The program currently utilizes youth probationers in conjunction

with community members and organizations to collaboratively cultivate

and paint large-scale murals. Murals can develop in response to criminality

that occurs in a community or in coordination with revitalization and

community building efforts. This article examines the project’s development

and implementation efforts following the completion of its first community

mural. Lessons learned from the pilot project provide the basis for increasing

program fidelity.

Keywords

restorative justice, mural arts youth probationer

1University of Pittsburgh–Greensburg, USA

Corresponding Author:

Timothy J. Holler, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Pittsburgh–Greensburg, PH

128, 150 Finoli Drive, Greensburg, PA 15601, USA.

Email: tjh67@pitt.edu

861083TPJXXX10.1177/0032885519861083The Prison JournalHoller

research-article2019

Holler 119S

Introduction

The Community Arts and Reintegration Project (CARP) is a multifaceted

community mural arts program that facilitates pro-social bonding between

individuals who have committed criminal offenses and their communities.

Aside from helping people who reintegrate into their community success-

fully, CARP provides individuals, and communities with a collective and

powerful voice through its restorative processes. In addition, CARP creates

collaborative efforts of community revitalization that include numerous jus-

tice agencies and community organizations. Most importantly, CARP helps

to build the collective conscience that is needed to address crime, victimiza-

tion, and community-wide healing.

CARP is built on the concepts of restorative justice, collaborative mural

making, and community revitalization. The goals of the program are three-

fold: to aid in the reintegration of justice-involved persons, to build commu-

nity through active participation, and to help revitalize communal spaces.

Although the program was designed with adult offender reentrants in mind,

the pilot project in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, has brought youth

probationers and community members together to produce a large-scale

mural. The finished product represents the collective efforts and conscious-

ness of that community. Murals have the potential to generate decades of

community discussion and bonding as their life span is between 20 and 30

years. CARP’s processes actively promote community safety and desistance

by providing individuals with a network of community support that is often

lacking in traditional justice responses to criminality.

This article details the development and implementation of CARP. The pro-

gram is still in its infancy, completing its pilot mural project in summer 2018.

The almost 4-year process included the collaborative efforts of seven youth

probationers, more than 75 community members, and numerous justice agen-

cies and community organizations. Concerns over using adult reentrants forced

the program to focus on youth probationers, but it is anticipated that the early

success of CARP will eliminate the community’s apprehensions, allowing for

expansion into the adult system. This article can also be seen as a starting point

for those who wish to develop their own community mural arts program.

The Development of the CARP

Developing community-based programming often brings with it a heightened

concern with outcomes rather than processes. Programs rooted in a justice

philosophy, therefore, become a means to an end. With CARP, the develop-

mental processes that would establish working relationships with community