CONCORD, N.H. — Inside a prison workshop, several inmates tap away at what look like old typewriters.
The devices are actually Perkins Braillers, which are used to write the code relied upon by many visually impaired people. In a first for New Hampshire’s prison system, 14 female inmates are spending much of the year learning Braille, so they can convert restaurant menus, textbooks and novels into Braille.
“To know I could actually do something good for somebody, that is good to know,” said Molly Martel, who is in the fifth year of a 20- to 40-year sentence for stabbing a friend to death.
The decision to bring Braille translation to the prison comes as the state readies to move to a larger women’s facility at the end of the year. As part of the planned move, officials began looking for new prison classes to teach women job skills.
Ron Cormier, the administrator of correctional industries, asked other prison systems and learned Braille transcription classes had become popular in U.S. prisons, with 27 programs for men and women. At the same time, he was hearing there was shortage of transcribers in the Northeast.
He mentioned it to state Department of Education officials, who were “absolutely ecstatic” about the idea, Cormier said.
Created by a Frenchman named Louise Braille in the 1800s, Braille organizes dots in various patterns to form letters, numbers and punctuation marks. Over the years, various shortcuts or contractions were added to the code in order to shorten hundreds of words.
