Local student places in Youth Capital Challenge
It all started at the suggestion of her ag teacher. It ended with a second place finish.
“Mr. Sammetinger thought this would be something I’d like,” Grace Lamarr explained. “I had never heard of it.”
“It” was the 2022 Ohio Youth Capital Challenge, an opportunity for students ages 14 to 18 to learn more about government and public policy. Sponsored by the Ohio Farm Bureau, the Ohio FFA and Ohio State University Extension 4-H Youth Development, the idea is to challenge young people to learn how to identify local issues, create solutions and follow the process through state government.
There was an application process where Lamarr wrote an essay explaining why she was a good fit for the program. She told organizers she liked the arguing process and was good at coming up with solutions, which earned a spot in the program with 15 other students from across the state.
Paired with Dalton Mullins of Fayette County, the two met via Zoom and Facetime, and spent a lot of time texting back and forth as they developed their plan for prison reform.
Lamarr said both she and Mullins knew prison reform —
and recidivism rates — is not a typical issue for an agricultural-themed project.
“But it’s a really big thing,” she said, adding both she and Mullins did a lot of research and both felt passionately about the topic.
At the project’s core was repeat offenders — identifying the challenges facing those in prisons and finding solutions to lower the recidivism rates while helping released inmates find success in their communities.
“Our goal was to get people to stop repeating their crimes,” Lamarr said, acknowledging that those who leave the prison system with a record often find it difficult to get a job. That lack of income leads to other issues, like homelessness, and may contribute to the number of repeat offenders that find their way back to prison.
Lamarr and Mullins proposed introducing job training programs into the prison system.
The program would be offered to eligible inmates, teaching skills needed for different employment opportunities in their communities — kitchen help, hair styling, factory jobs, fire fighting, etc.
“They’d come out of the prison system trained, so it would be easier to get a job, and break the cycle,” Lamarr said.
Probation officers could provide a support system to the released inmates in this model, both in helping find suitable employment and providing encouragement to those re-entering the workforce.
With the second place finish under their belts, Lamarr hopes to tweak the plan and present it to those in the judicial system.
“I want to get it out there,” she said, noting the feedback she received as they were developing the project was positive. She also believes there is an opportunity for the ag community to benefit from the potential additional members of the workforce. “There are ag jobs (inmates) can be trained for too. (The jobs) are out there.”
Lamarr will be a sophomore at Wapakoneta High School when classes begin again in August. She will continue with ag education, and said her career goal is to be an attorney, specializing in criminal and domestic/family law.
And she hopes to apply to the Youth Capital Challenge again next year.
“I’d like to do it again, and expand the project into a different area,” Lamarr said. “With the right partner there’s more to explore and continue within this field.”