A GOOD JUDGE OF CHARACTER
How a US criminal court judge helps the homeless through running
‘THE AREA HAS A LOT OF PROBLEMS WITH DRUGS AND VIOLENCE. A few months ago, I got hit in the face trying to break up a fight. It’s pretty dicey down there.' Judge Craig Mitchell, 61, is describing Skid Row, a notorious area in downtown Los Angeles, US, where the homeless population on any given night can reach 20,000. It also happens to be the location of a remarkable running club, started by Craig in 2012.
‘A man whom I’d sentenced to prison, Roderick Brown, came back into my courtroom one day and said, “I’m at the Midnight Mission [a refuge and rehab centre in Skid Row] and I’d like you to meet the people who are helping me to maintain my sobriety,”’ says Craig. So he headed down to the Mission to meet its president, Larry Adamson, who asked him if he felt he could help in any way.
Craig – who took up running when he was 40 and now loves it so much he wears trainers and running shorts underneath his judge’s robes so that he’s ready for his lunchtime run – thought he could. And so began the Skid Row Running Club.
Participation levels were modest at first. ‘It started very, very humbly,’ says Craig. ‘On the first run, I think we had two runners. And for the first few months, a good day would be four or five runners. But the more I got into it, the more I began to develop a friendship with the people I was running with.’ There was Fuller, ‘a tatted-up scary-looking guy’, who had been involved with drugs for many years, yet was ‘incredibly intelligent’. Or Ben Shirley, a talented musician who’d toured with Metallica before alcohol and drugs destroyed his career. ‘So many people have a very one-dimensional view of what it means to be homeless or a drug addict,’ says Craig. ‘But running and speaking with these people, their full dimension comes through.’