Sheriff Encourages Justice-Involved Individuals and Others to Pursue a Life of Learning

By Patrick McDermott, Norfolk County Sheriff

This month, students across Norfolk County returned to their classrooms. If you’re a student, you might have held a few conflicting emotions: saying goodbye to the heady freedom that summer offers while looking forward with trepid excitement to a new school year and the possibilities of what might come.

Even though I’m no longer a student, and both of my children are now in college, I appreciate this time of year. As I look around at students of all ages returning to the classroom, I find myself thinking about other opportunities to continue learning. We don’t stop learning and improving just because we’ve earned a diploma, but we do frequently have the chance to shape our own learning environments.

Continuing education is of critical importance to me as the Sheriff of Norfolk County. A population that is curious, engaged, and willing to seek out answers to tough questions is a population who is more resilient when life gets tough. That’s why I’ve prioritized educational programming for the justice-involved individuals housed at the House of Correction.

Educational programming fulfills a number of needs for those who are incarcerated. The first is that it can provide concrete vocational skills to people whose tenuous access to steady employment may have contributed to making the kinds of decisions that resulted in their incarceration. Our facility offers justice-involved individuals opportunities to learn in classes ranging from vocational training to GED programs to college readiness. Individuals who participate in these programs leave the facility with more tools in their kit to make positive, lasting changes when they return to their communities.

In essence, that is the purpose of learning: to understand how your environment works so that you can make changes to it when needed. When people understand how the world works, they’re better prepared to make positive choices to fix it when they see that it’s broken. Many of the people in the House of Correction are there because they saw that something was broken in their lives – from financial insecurity to substance use to hopelessness – and they made poor decisions in an attempt to change it. By providing a range of educational opportunities, it’s my hope that they can leave our facility understanding not only how their past decisions caused more problems but that it’s still possible to make positive changes to fix the issues that were there in the first place.

This is why a pursuit of learning is integral to everything we do at the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office, from our community programming to our professional development. It’s why we’ve supported and grown programs like our Youth Leadership Academy to give young people chances to challenge themselves and shape their environment in a safe environment. And why we invest in educational outreach for all ages to give people the tools they need to make good choices and make their communities safer.

As the leader of an organization whose mission is to promote and preserve public safety in Norfolk County, I also want my staff to see education as a lifelong process and feel empowered to educate themselves, attend conferences, and find other opportunities to continue growing and improving. Our staff enthusiastically pursue these opportunities because, to a person, they know the value in continuing to grow, learn, and develop in their careers and personal lives.

Just as this is my charge to my employees, I want to encourage you to take on this agenda, too. Look for opportunities in your own life to expand your horizons. This might mean learning a new skill or hobby – there are often classes for beginners at local hobbyist groups and community colleges. Or maybe it’s expanding your professional skillset by pursuing credentialing or a new degree in your field. Many employers are eager to assist their employees in this pursuit, so it can be worth checking to see if there are incentives at work for this.

But at the end of the day, what is most important is that you continue to grow and change. Learning can be its own reward, and it’s one that I personally feel pays dividends for a long time to come. Because, at the end of the day, learning is about making your world just a little bit bigger and a little bit better.

Thanks to Norfolk County Sheriff Patrick McDermott for contributing this article to Westwood Minute.