GIRL SCOUTS MEET IN PRISON WITH THEIR DADS

Troop Aims To Teach Fathers And Girls Responsibility

Lima Ohio -- The convicts stand in a circle, three fingers pointed
skyward, nine faces set in stone, their deepk, male voices raised in
slow recitiation:

"On my honor, I will try, "To serve God and my country, "To help
people at all times, "And to live by the Girl Scout Law."

At their sides stand their daughters, their small fingers also raised
in the Girl Scout salute. This is the regular monthly meeting of
Troop 994 -- not in a school, not in a church, but at the Allen
Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison rising from the
rolling farmlands of northwestern Ohio.

Lugging boxes filled with sandwiches, Hawaiian Punch, potato chips
and sashes bearing merit badges, the girls file into a
linoleum-floored visiting room on Wednesday afternoon. They range in
age from 6 to 12; they are in shorts and purple Girl Scout T-shirts,
in tennis shoes and ankle socks, their hair bouncing in pony tails,
swept back with headbands, tied with sparkling barrettes.

Their dads -- most of them imprisoned for drug trafficking, serving
sentences ranging from 36 months to 18 years -- hang back for a few
heartbeats, adjusting to an abrupt shift in reality. They have just
been strip-searched before being allowed to change into identical
polo shirts and khaki trousers, rewards for good behavior and
participating in this program.

Eight-year-old Paige, a precocious child with crooked teeth and
chin-length brown hair, gathers the ends of her big T-shirt, trying
to tie a knot so it hangs just so on her tiny waist. Her dad, Ben,
who just turned 27 while serving a five-year sentence for selling
drugs, appears baffled by how to solve his little girl's fashion dilemma.

He tentatively puts an arm around her shoulders, as if afraid he
might break her, and lowers his blue eyes to her hazel ones. "Hi," he says.

And so the meeting begins.

It takes about 30 minutes and copious amounts of sandwiches and chips
and bright pink drinks for dads and daughters to catch up and settle
in. Then there are cake and cookies and games and merit badge work
and projects designed to help parent and child -- the latest is a
lesson in how to open a small business. Many nail and hair salons are planned.

The meetings last about two hours, give or take the time it takes to
herd a giggling gaggle of girls, running high on refined sugar, out
the door. The fathers put on brave faces that drop like rain the
minute their daughters leave.

This Daddies and Daughters chapter is a pilot, part of the Girl
Scouts' Beyond Bars program, a 14-year-old effort funded by the
Justice Department. It is the only one that unites fathers and
daughters. Every other troop - about 40 across the country - brings
mothers and daughters together.

The goal is to establish a relationship between parent and child, in
some cases where none existed. Each group is taught how to
understand the other. Parents learn how to lead by example, how to
set goals and how to simply spend time with their children. The girls
learn how to deal with the burden of having a parent in prison, how
to respect themselves, how to be a responsible kid. Having fun is
part of the plan.

The troop plays charades using a boxed set of cards, a game that
delights the girls and makes shy men out of convicted felons.
"Daddy," Paige says, "I want you to buy this for me when you get out."

It is, without doubt, a surreal slice of life. Grown men who've spent
much of their lives living on the wrong side of the law are singing
Girl Scout songs, sewing and making purses. Little girls who've just
come from school are sitting inside an all-male prison, ringed by
five vertical rows of concertina wire.

Yet here they are, each one struggling to condense a month of news,
hopes and thoughts into two hours. Briefly, they know the comfort of
a father's touch and the warmth of a daughter's embrace.