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Oberlin Music at Grafton Correctional Institution Men's Choir

Oberlin Music at Grafton (OMAG) is a music-arts education program offered to residents of the Reintegration Center on the campus of the Grafton Correctional Institution in Grafton, about 30 miles southeast of Cleveland. 

OMAG is one of several self-help programs offered at the Reintegration Center to prepare inmates for release in an effort to reduce the State’s recidivism rate, which is how often inmates return to prison within a three-year period.  In Ohio, that rate has been in decline for the past 15 years, falling from a high of 39 percent in 2000, to 27.5 percent in 2015, while the national average stands at about 40 percent, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Under the direction of Professor Jody Kerchner, the Director of Music Education at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, OMAG aims to promote leadership, responsibility, confidence and self-esteem while fostering an appreciation for the arts.