Comments for Behind the Slamming Door

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Produced by Rebecca Sheir

Other pieces by Rebecca Sheir

Summary: After 30 years of helping troubled teens find peace, one delinquent-turned-probation-officer calls it a day.
 

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Review of Behind the Slamming Door

A skillfully-done feature about a retiring juvenile justice official--himself a one-time "delinquent." Rebecca Sheir has put evident energy into making the most of a simple assignment: profile Gary Caddell using just sit-down interviews with him and with a former client from his time as a probation officer. The piece is assembled with quick pacing and back-and-forthing between the narrator and the interviewees. It's marred a bit by occasionally cliche'd writing. The former delinquent girl had "fallen in with a bad crowd" that committed assault and other "extracurriculars." The piece opens with the inevitable slam of the prison door, but in what I suspect is a sly acknowledgment of that sonic cliche, Sheir lets us hear her asking Caddell to "do that again." And he does.