At first glance, stubborn cowlicks and goofy humor are the most unruly things noticeable about the teen-age boys gathered in a late afternoon meeting of the Blanket Project at the Long Creek Youth Development Center.

The group is calm and focused on their hands – the nicked knuckles and nibbled nails of hands gripping crochet hooks. They wrap and hook and pull and release strands of yarn that bloom, inch by inch, into bright creations on their laps. And we're not talking grandma doilies here – we're talking tightly woven blankets that can weigh several pounds and cool monogrammed hats that teenagers would actually be seen in.

But the quiet conversation – about bad dreams and crochet blisters, meds they take and girlfriends outside – wafting from the klatch at this juvenile detention facility belies just who these kids are. Asked how many incarcerations each has, the dozen boys call out numbers – 9, 17, 11 ... to a total of 139. The youngest, an impish 13-year-old in his first day in the crocheting program and hooking an inexpertly loose first few rows of a blanket, reports 14 incarcerations.

Their crimes? Attempted murder, arson, gun-running, drug sales, and more.

In another world – the adult world – these boys would be called felons. At Long Creek, they're juvenile offenders allowed second, third, fourth, and more chances to correct their ways.

But still, Long Creek is a jail. Kids arrive shackled and cuffed. They're patted down every time they come "home" to their 8-by-15-foot locked bedroom cells. They have a life without hip-hop (too violent) that starts at 6:30 wake-up and ends at 9 or 10 p.m. lights-out, and even in this program the crochet hooks and scissors are counted and carefully checked out and in.

The Blanket Project is for those who earn it through good behavior – and once involved, they're careful not to lose the privilege. "Crocheting makes me feel good," says Timma Johnstone, a pony-tailed, 19-year-old arsonist who burned a field "because I was mad at someone." Crocheting a long pink blanket, he adds, "When you're here you can calm down."

Yes, it's touchy-feely, but the program is about more than making the boys feel good.

"It helps the kids build those skills they've not been exposed to at all, or have had no opportunity to practice," says Dan Reardon, a consultant and former CEO of the Bass shoe company who has volunteered 20 hours a week here as a mentor for more than a decade. "To create something from beginning to end, being able to give to their families and communities, talking for hours and hours – those are all social skills that will help make them successful outside. That's restorative justice – to make everybody whole."

The blankets – dozens of them crocheted, dozens more cut-and-tied fleece – are largely given back to the communities in which crimes were committed. They go to homeless shelters, day-care centers, and retirement homes.

"Jail doesn't make anybody better," says Mr. Reardon, echoing the corrections conundrum that has forever vexed policymakers. "But [the Blanket Project] brings them closer to reconciliation with the community."

There's no direct measure of how the project or other "risk intervention" programs like it at Long Creek contribute to keeping kids on the straight and narrow. But this facility, says superintendent Rod Bouffard, has a low rate of recidivism – 15 percent. About 85 percent of those youths released from Long Creek in the past year and a half have not been recommitted to any correctional facility, he says, compared with a national average of just over 50 percent.

Tomorrow begins one boy's test of his Blanket Project mettle. Branden Staples, a veteran from Long Creek's "high risk" unit, turns 20 on Thanksgiving Day and will walk free after spending most of his teen years here for an attempted murder in a drunken brawl and assaults on a probation officer and policeman.

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