On Thursday, February 4 at 6:00 PM Marie Finnegan will present a talk on the K9 Corrections program. Puppies in prison? Come learn more about K-9 Corrections, the collaboration between the Pope Memorial Humane Society of Knox County and the Maine State prison. Marie Finnegan, founder of K-9 Solutions Dog Training Inc., discusses how the program works and the benefits to both the dogs and the men involved. Marie has been training dogs and their people for the public professionally after completing her apprenticeship under master trainer Lloyd Williams of Bear Brook Kennel in 2001. She has been working with the inmates and running the K-9 Corrections program since it began in 2006.
On Thursday, February 18 at 6:00 PM there will be an Author Talk with Rob Reilly on his book "Life
in Prison: Eight Hours at a Time." The book is an account of the author’s seven year odyssey as a prison guard. After 13 years of struggle, and despite several modest recording and publishing deals, Robert Reilly found himself broke and in need of a job. A chance conversation with a neighbor led him to apply, somewhat halfheartedly, for a job at the county prison. Robert Reilly provides a look inside America’s prison system unlike any other, and the way it affects not only the prisoners themselves, but also the corrections officers and their families.
On Thursday, February 25 at 6:00 PM there will be a screening of the documentary Herman’s House (2013– Filmmaker: Angad Singh Bhalla) This event is a collaboration with POV ( http://www.pbs.org/pov/ ), PBS' award-winning nonfiction film series. Herman Wallace may have been the longest-serving prisoner in solitary confinement in the United States — he spent more than 40 years in a 6-by-9-foot cell in Louisiana. Imprisoned in 1967 for a robbery he admits, he was subsequently sentenced to life for a killing he vehemently denies. Herman's House is a moving account of the remarkable expression his struggle found in an unusual project proposed by artist Jackie Sumell. Imagining Wallace's "dream home" began as a game and became an interrogation of justice and punishment in America. The film takes us inside the duo's unlikely 12-year friendship, revealing the transformative power of art.
Rockland Public Library is located at 80 Union St. in Rockland. These events, sponsored by the Friends of the Rockland Library, is free and open to the public. FMI: 594-0310.