After years behind bars, Elario Cordova is walking away from the gang life that put him there.
On Tuesday, Cordova, 30, was among nine ex-cons who graduated from “Flipping the Script,” a program dedicated to keeping them from returning to prison.
The program has graduated 56 parolees since it was started in April by anti-gang activist the Rev. Leon Kelly.
Only three participants have slipped up and returned to jail, said Tim Hand, deputy director of the Colorado Department of Corrections division of adult parole.
“They help you get on the right track,” said Cordova, a father of three.
Unlike programs that are requirements of parole, “Flipping the Script” is voluntary.
Kelly and his staff work with those who enroll to identify what they will need to escape the cycle of recidivism, said Janeen Cameron, program development administrator.
“They have homework every night and we have weekly group sessions and we call them once a week to hold them accountable,” Cameron said.
“Flipping the Script” enhances services that the DOC provides to parolees, Cameron said.
Parolees learn how to dress and behave in socially acceptable ways, said Hand, who helped get the program off the ground and remains involved. His department provides $75,000 a year to run the program.
“You have got to retrain them,” Hand said. “A lot of these guys have been playing around with gangs since they were 12 years old, stealing bicycles.”
Occasionally, someone shows up who believes he can skate through, Cameron said. “They either step up to the plate, or we are going to excuse them from the program.”
“Flipping the Script” targets parolees who are between the ages of 30 and 40.
“By that time they have most of that rabbit out of them,” said Kelly, who served time for aggravated robbery and since his release from prison has fought to curb gang violence. He was pardoned in December.
In the weekly group sessions, Kelly exhorts felons he calls his “children” to wipe the thought of criminal activity from their minds.
He tells them they have failed at being criminals or they wouldn’t have spent so much time in jail.
“You are no good at it,” he said at a recent session.
Role-playing is used to help them learn to communicate with family and in a work setting. “We try to give them the tools to keep a disagreement from becoming a heated argument where there might be violence,” Cameron said.
Cordova, who is working as a day laborer while looking for something steady, now lives with his mother, Joanne Cordova, 48.
In his long career of crime, he told his family more than once that he would change his ways.
Now, he said, “I am trying to prove it with my actions.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
