The Department of Corrections received a grant from the Oregon Zoo to rehabilitate an endangered species of frog that lives in the Pacific Northwest. The staff and offenders at Cedar Creek Corrections Center have had a higher success rate at rearing the Oregon spotted frog than zoos and nature centers in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. News release from the WA DOC.

“It’s a remarkable achievement for a prison to receive a scientific grant,” Acting Prisons Director Dan Pacholke said. “It’s good for our staff and offenders, and it’s good for the local ecology.”

Last year the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife released 83 Oregon spotted frogs from Cedar Creek Corrections Center in marshes on Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Pierce County. The prison expects to release about that many again this year.

The frog rehabilitation is part of the Sustainable Prisons Project, a partnership between the Department of Corrections and The Evergreen State College. The project is designed to reduce operational costs by developing sustainable practices, reduce prisons’ impact on the environment and connect offenders to nature.

Part of the $5,000 grant will be used to raise crickets for the frogs to eat. The Department of Fish and Wildlife currently has to import crickets from Southeastern states due to a local shortage.

“Raising the crickets at the prison is another way we’re reducing our carbon footprint and making the project more sustainable,” said Kelli Bush, the project manager of the Sustainable Prisons Project.

Prison administrators credit including offenders in scientific projects like frog rehabilitation as one of the reasons prison violence has dramatically decreased the past two years.

“When an offender has researchers and biologists coming up and asking them for their input on scientific projects, it gives the offender a sense of pride and accomplishment,” Pacholke said. “And when offenders have a sense of purpose they are less likely to get involved in criminal activity, whether it’s in a prison or in the community.”

Zoo officials say they are impressed with the rehabilitation effort at Cedar Creek Corrections Center.

“Everyone should be proud of the work being done by the staff and offenders at the Department of Corrections,” said Kim Smith, Oregon Zoo director. “They are truly making a difference in the recovery of this species.”

jchev Environment and Energy, Inmate Programs, Washington

State prison inmates trying to earn parole, many of them with alcohol and drug abuse backgrounds, face a shortage of treatment programs they need to attend as a condition of being set free. Alan Coburn, a member of the Adult Parole Board, told a committee studying parole issues yesterday that because treatment options are few, many inmates ready for release remain behind bars for up to a year while they wait their turn. Story in the Union Leader.

Substance abuse treatment and mental health counseling are considered keys to the success of a new state plan to move inmates out of prison more quickly, and focus corrections costs on the most dangerous inmates in custody.

The majority of state prison inmates have drug or alcohol problems, studies have shown. Coburn said demand for treatment upon release is so great that if beds were to double at the Tirrell House he oversees in Manchester, “those beds would be full tomorrow.” The number of treatment facilities around the state has steadily eroded over the past decade, complicating parole decisions, Coburn said.

“In many cases, we feel if we do release them before treatment, they’ll never make it to the program because they’ll relapse while they’re outside waiting,” he said.

The study committee on parole practices was established by the Legislature before it passed the more comprehensive Justice Reinvestment Act. The act is meant to cut what the state spends on corrections facilities. It will allow most non-violent inmates to be paroled after they serve 120 percent of their minimum sentence. They will be expected to stick to counseling sessions and other requirements spelled out in the conditions of their parole, or face a guaranteed 90-day return trip to prison.

The bill was supported by Gov. John Lynch, corrections officials, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick and Attorney General Michael Delaney. Parole officers opposed the bill, saying their workload is already so high they will be unable to keep up with the increased number of parolees.

John Eckert, executive assistant to the Adult Parole Board, said that records from the Corrections department show that more inmates are being sent to prison for new offenses, not parole violations on things like alcohol abuse of moving without notifying parole officers.

Between September 2009 and March 2010, he said, roughly 60 percent of inmates were committed on new criminal activity, about double what had been the case until recently.

Eckert said he disagrees with statements made at an earlier committee meeting that it is difficult for inmates to win parole.

“We parole at least three-quarters of the people we see, which nationally is about the highest,” Eckert said. “I’ve had a consultant come in and say, ‘Wow. That’s awfully high.’/” It is common for parole to be approved, but for an inmate to linger behind bars waiting for treatment or trying to arrange for a job or rental housing, Eckert said.

Joseph Diament, who heads the new community corrections division at the Department of Corrections, said after the hearing that treatment facilities that closed did so because of low reimbursement from private insurers, not because of state budget cuts.

Diament said the state is taking bids from companies that would set up a series of state operated counseling centers to support parolees and probationers. The centers would be operated through a $900,000 federal grant.

jchev Community Corrections, Drug Treatment & Diversion, Inmate Programs

Robert Chance had little hope of ever breaking a cycle of drug addiction, crime and prison until a judge ordered him to serve his third stint in prison at the Powder River Correctional Facility in Baker City. At Powder River, Chance and other inmates get drug and alcohol treatment through New Directions Northwest, which provides those services under contract with the Oregon Department of Corrections. Report from the Baker City Herald.

“The other night I had a client inmate come in and thank us for the program we have at Powder River. He said it had saved his life, and he went on to say that his children want to thank us too, because now they have their dad back,” said Shari Selander, incoming director of New Directions Northwest.

Selander said the intense drug and alcohol treatment program typically lasts about six months and is designed to give inmate clients the skills and knowledge to break out of the cycle of addiction and crime, and go out into the community to be successful.

“Going through the intense program allows them to look deep inside themselves and look at the choices they’ve made in life, and where those choices have got them today,” Selander said. “Now they have a second chance of turning their lives around and being able to live out their dreams and find success in areas that were lost.”

Some of the inmates undergoing drug and alcohol treatment at Powder River and other prisons have had mental health issues that went undiagnosed, so at some point in their lives they started self- medicating with drugs or alcohol, and wound up addicted.

“Drug and alcohol problems were a factor in 80 percent of the criminal cases that got them here. That’s why it is so important that the state of Oregon continue to implement these drug and alcohol programs with the prisons,” Selander said.

Most of the 271 inmates at Powder River also get basic work experience doing kitchen duty, janitorial, laundry and groundskeeping jobs, but a select few land jobs working in the physical plant where they can learn electrical, carpentry and plumbing skills, or manufacturing computer printer cartridges in a shop operated inside the prison by Step Forward Activities.

“People who say rehab doesn’t work need to look at the program we run in Baker City,” said Gene Button, executive director at Step Forward Activities.

“It does work,” Button said. “We follow up with the people who work for us in prison. We give them a work reference and we help place them into viable jobs when they get out.”

He said the company’s follow-up data shows that 88 percent of the ex-convicts who worked for Step Forward assembling printer cartridges were employed one year after their release.

That figure is more than double the 40 percent rate of employment nationwide among the general prison population, Button said.

“Eighty-eight percent of the people who went through our program are now drawing a paycheck and contributing thousands of dollars in taxes, instead of sitting inside a prison costing taxpayers thousands of dollars,” Button said.

The jobs program Step Forward started at Powder River seven years ago was the first of its kind in the nation, where they built a facility inside the walls of a prison, Button said.

“One of the goals of the DOC is to give inmates the training and education they need so they can get gainful employment and not reoffend and go back to prison,” Button said. “That’s where we shine.”

Chance is one of those who couldn’t find a job, went back to selling meth and wound up returning to prison to serve two prison sentences at taxpayer expense before he was finally given an opportunity on his third time in prison to work for Step Forward and get drug and alcohol treatment with New Directions Northwest.

Now in his 50s, Chance said he doesn’t want to waste any more of his life sitting in a prison cell, or enslaved to meth.

“Hopefully I will get some tools this time so I can avoid using and get a job. It’s what I want,” Chance said. “I see this as a career move.”

He applied for work manufacturing computer cartridges for Step Forward in hopes it would lead to a new career outside of the prison gates.

“I was real fortunate to get through the screening and qualify to get to work here,” he said.

The Oregon Department of Corrections reports that drug and alcohol treatment combined with job training is provided at the states alternative incarceration prisons to about 600 inmates a year, out of more than 14,000 inmates serving sentences in Oregon.

Powder River is one of three alternative incarceration prisons in Oregon providing alcohol and drug treatment along with various types of work experience.

Ken Neff, operations manager at Powder River, has taken on most of the superintendent responsibilities since Jean Hill retired from the superintendent’s position earlier this year.

Neff said teaching inmates job skills in prison is huge.

“Some have never had jobs. They don’t know work ethics. They don’t know anything about job skills,” Neff said.

Inmates at Powder River who want to earn some money and gain basic jobs skills are required to fill out an application and go through a job interview, Neff said.

Ron Miles, communications officer at Powder River, said inmates have to meet certain qualifications to be eligible for treatment, or for jobs inside the prison.

To be assigned to Powder River and be eligible for treatment, inmates generally have to be at the low end of custody level, which Miles said is based on a complex scoring system that takes into account factors such as age, the nature of the crime, history of drug or alcohol addiction and disabilities.

“Some inmates come in at higher custody levels, and over time they earn the lower custody levels through behavior and other factors. Behavior is the biggest factor,” Miles said.

jchev Drug Treatment & Diversion, Inmate Programs, OR Baker County

Inmates are on the move in Tulsa after the Oklahoma Department of Corrections cancels its contract with a correctional facility. The DOC is now relocating dozens of offenders in the Prisoner Public Work program and leaving one building almost empty in the process. Maximum capacity at Riverside Intermediate Sanction Facility is 380. Right now the real concern is minimum capacity. News and additional photos from The News on 6.

It’s only going to get quieter for administrator Donnie Coffman and his staff at the facility on Charles Page Boulevard in Tulsa.

Over the last two months, Riverside, which is run by Avalon Correctional Services, has lost almost all the inmates in the Prisoner Public Work program.

Under the program, state inmates come in and get assigned to a work crew that picks up trash, digs ditches and mows lawns around the city. Eventually those inmates move on to a halfway house and then get released back into society.

“The way that it’s set up for re-entry, I thought it was an important step in transitioning them from behind a fence to a halfway house,” said Donnie Coffman, Avalon Regional Administrator. “They do good work. It’s a good management of our tax dollars.”

And money is exactly what led to the DOC cutting the Riverside contract short.

The facility and the Muskogee Community Corrections Center were both affected by the DOC cutbacks. The two contracts saved the department $2 million.

“We’re going to have to make up $40 million in budget shortfall this year, so we’re looking at every operation we have,” said Jerry Massie, Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

The Prisoner Public Work program was the only program that didn’t make money for the DOC. The department had to shut something out.

“We don’t have the luxury now to have a function that’s not generating some income for us,” said Massie.

The few offenders left will soon be transported to other facilities, like work centers or halfway houses. The DOC says their progress in the system won’t be affected.

Avalon President Brian Costello says he has two options moving forward with the Riverside facility. Either try to renegotiate a contract with the Department of Corrections or seek new contracts to fill up the building, perhaps with federal inmates.

jchev Economic Issues, Inmate Programs, Oklahoma

They’re growing not just crops but new lives at Gateway Community Garden on Detroit’s east side. Michigan prison inmates finishing their sentences at the Gateway halfway house on East Jefferson Avenue at Lillibridge Street have created a small but vibrant example of an inner-city garden. Using a vacant lot and recycled debris from a demolished house nearby, the inmates are growing corn, tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, lettuce and squash. Story from the Detroit Free Press.

The men give away the fruits and vegetables to needy people and appreciate purposeful work to fill their final days of incarceration. For James (Bear) Fuller, 51, who spent 34 years in prison for homicide, the garden is a metaphor for the changes he and other prisoners have tried to make in themselves.

“I look at vegetables and fruits like people,” Fuller said last week. “They need to be nurtured, tended to. A garden needs to be weeded just like a person’s spirit.”

Serving 10 years in Michigan prisons for assault with a deadly weapon, Harley Hubble, 50, spent three of those years studying horticulture. He learned about crops, soil management, landscape design and greenhouses. Now he’s putting that training to good use.

Hubble is one of a few dozen Michigan prison inmates working at the Gateway Community Garden on Detroit’s east side while finishing their sentences at the Gateway halfway house nearby. Though many prisoners work at the garden during their 60-day residency there, most attribute the garden’s success to Hubble, who has taken on the role of master gardener.

“It helps us to do something constructive, give back to the community after our setbacks and mistakes,” Hubble said recently. “And it can humble a person. You come out here and do this, you get a pride and joy out of the design. That makes an individual feel good.”

Ernest Holt, 30, finishing a 4 1/2-year sentence for armed robbery, echoed Hubble’s words.

“It’s very creative, because guys take nothing and make it into something,” he said. “It could have been a vacant field full of trash. We all put our efforts in, our blood, sweat and tears. It came out beautiful.”

Gateway demonstrates that urban agriculture can deliver benefits well beyond simply growing food. In Detroit and in cities across America, community gardens are helping to assimilate immigrants, shelter battered women and train new workforces. Community gardens often provide a rallying point for a hard-hit urban neighborhood.

Therapy and Vegetables
Kristina Davis, a social worker who oversees the inmates at the Gateway halfway house, said the garden fulfills a dual purpose.

“It’s providing a therapeutic activity for our residents as well as being able to feed the neighborhood,” she said.

The prisoners themselves agree the garden is good therapy after years behind bars. Vegetables and fruits have become almost like friends.

“I enjoy coming out here daily to check on it and see what’s new, who’s peeking out today, waving at us,” said Caesar Whidby, 41, who has served 20 years for murder.

Helping Hands
The garden, which measures about 50-feet-by-50 feet and grows just off busy East Jefferson Avenue, is beginning to draw attention Neighbors have donated hand tools and seeds. The Belle Isle Conservatory gave the prisoners some tomatoes and pepper plants.

Once, as a prisoner mowed the grass with a hand mower, a motorist hauling a rider mower stopped, cut the grass for them, and moved on. A Home Depot employee gave the garden a deep discount on marigold plants that, planted around the perimeter of the garden, repel bugs and pests. The marigolds give off a skunk-like odor when damp, as in the early morning.

“Most furry rodents won’t come bother with it,” Hubble explained.

The garden also gets assistance from the Detroit-based nonprofit group Urban Farming, which supports a network of hundreds of gardens across the nation. Taja Sevelle, a popular entertainer who founded and leads the group, called the Gateway garden “one of those win-win situations that we like to try to create. We look for creative partnerships, and this is a great one.”
Future is uncertain

In an odd coincidence, Davis and one of her recent residents, James (Bear) Fuller, first met 34 years ago, when Davis was just beginning her career in prison social work and Fuller was beginning his sentence for murder. Standing together in the garden recently, Fuller joked, “I started with her, and I finished with her right here.”

“The difference in 34 years, he’s not angry any more,” Davis said.

The conversation prompted Hubble to joke that Fuller’s nickname comes “not because he’s fuzzy and cuddly; because he’s ornery.” But Fuller gave a rueful smile and said softly, “All that anger is gone.”

The Gateway halfway house program is run by a private contractor, Proaction Behavioral Health Alliance of Grand Rapids, on contract with the Michigan Department of Corrections. The program will end Sept. 30. But Davis said she hoped that other ex-offenders using the Gateway house in programs run by Wayne County and federal authorities, or perhaps people from the neighborhood may keep the garden going.

jchev Halfway Houses, Inmate Programs, Michigan

As the urban garden movement continues to spread, even inmates in Johnson County are starting to grow veggies. On Thursday, they harvested produce in new garden patches that stand like small islands in a sea of grass outside the Johnson County Department of Corrections Adult Residential Center, near the New Century AirCenter. Story in The Kansas City Star.

This is the first year for the garden, which is tended by residential inmates, work-release prisoners and offenders confined for substance-abuse treatment.

The operation already has donated hundreds of pounds of food to charity.

Kevin Burdick, 31, of Olathe, is one of the gardeners. He engaged in credit card fraud because of a drug addiction, he said, and is getting substance abuse treatment.

Swinging a plastic bag filled with cherry tomatoes, he said people like to sign out of the adjacent treatment center and stroll to the gardens.

“Sometimes you just need to get away,” he said.

He has watched the crops prosper — including squash, onions, peppers, cucumbers and melons. “It makes you feel good,” he said.

The inmates like helping others, but they also like eating some of the vegetables, said corrections supervisor Tom Tysver.

As for their diet otherwise, he said, “You don’t want to say it’s lower end, but the food here, it is what it is.”

Tysver helped organize the first garden, and inmates did the work. They dug, planted and weeded, and now they are harvesting.

A horse farm owner donated manure for the garden at 141 Mission Parkway. Olathe gives compost to citizens and because some inmates are from Olathe, they received some free compost.

Lisa Simkins, 43, of Kansas City, Kan., also was picking vegetables Thursday. She has a forgery conviction and is also getting drug treatment.

“Holy cow,” she said of a big cucumber she picked.

She’s helped water and weed and now pick, she said. “It’s fun; therapeutic, I guess.”

When picking ended, Tysver glanced at the surrounding grass. Someday, gardens could replace it all, he said.

jchev Inmate Programs, KS Johnson County

Two rows of black and white Holstein cows waited Monday morning for prison inmates to connect their udders to milking machines, then stood patiently as white liquid began flowing into collection containers. The scene takes place twice a day at the Wateree Correctional Institution, as prisoners milk about 200 cows. News, with photo gallery, in The State.

But at this Sumter County facility, they’re accomplishing more than milk production. The dairy operation has resulted in thousands in savings into thousands for the S.C. Department of Corrections, which like most state agencies has been struggling with budget deficits in a tough economic climate.

The cows produce more than 500,000 gallons of milk per year, served daily to the S.C. Department of Corrections’ 24,000 inmates statewide. The milk also supplies cafeterias at the S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice, with a little sold on the market in South Carolina.

But next year, the dairy will expand into a new $7 million facility that can milk 1,000 cows a day, said Bert Dew, branch chief for agriculture at the Corrections Department. The expansion will allow production of more than 2.3 million gallons per year, with the larger dairy also capable of packaging single-serve milk and juices and of producing potable water for state emergencies. The excess milk from the expanded dairy will be sold on the open market in South Carolina, Dew said.

Dairy farmers do not expect the prison’s milk sales to affect their operations, because the state’s dairies do not produce enough to satisfy the demand, said Jamie Cantrell, a field representative with the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative, which markets milk for farmers.

In fact, the Corrections Department milk is expected to save the state’s dairy producers about $200,000 per year in import costs. About 80 dairy farms operate statewide.

“Any time local milk is produced, it’s a load that doesn’t have to be hauled in from Texas or New York state,” Cantrell said.

Wateree is one of three farms in the state’s prison system. Those farms also produce eggs, vegetables, grits and corn meal that are used to feed inmates, saving nearly $600,000 a year. The Corrections Department’s daily food cost per inmate — $1.51 — is the lowest among prison systems nationwide, said Josh Gelinas, the department spokesman.

And the farms raise products such as beef cattle that are sold for cash. That money is returned to the farms so they can pay for themselves, Dew said.

At Wateree, 200 of the prison’s 700 inmates work on the farm under the supervision of professional agriculture specialists such as Dew. The inmates’ work helps hold down expenses, since they do not earn salaries. And the hard work keeps behavioral problems to a minimum, he said.

“If you work them and they work hard all day, you don’t have any trouble out of them,” he said. “They come in and go to bed.”

Besides the dairy, Wateree also produces grits, corn meal, sweet potatoes, lumber and cattle, and chicken feed.

The Corrections Department has projected that the expanded dairy will pay for itself within 10 years, said Jon Ozmint, Corrections Department director. The first 500 cows are expected to move into a new barn in January.

But Ozmint said he wouldn’t be surprised if the dairy generated enough money to recoup the expense at a faster rate, especially if the price of milk holds steady.

Once Corrections pays off its construction costs, it will use the money to pay for other expenses such as offsetting budget deficits. This year, Corrections expects to run a $10 million deficit, Ozmint said. If the dairy already was profitable, it would generate more than $1 million that could help with the shortfall.

The Corrections Department constantly evaluates the agriculture market to see which crops and livestock are profitable. A few years ago, the department dropped hog farming because it did not make money, Ozmint said. But it added a large egg production facility.

“That’s why we focus on eggs and milk, because they’ve always been winners for us,” he said.

The new dairy is being built mostly by prison labor. Inmates are grading the foundation and building two barns. A private contractor has been hired to build the milking parlor, said John Harmon, chief of facilities management for the Corrections Department.

On Monday, inmates drove bulldozers and backhoes across the site and pounded a steel frame into place.

Duane, whose full name was not released because of Corrections Department policy, said he owned a construction business before he was incarcerated. He sees the job as a chance to keep his skills sharp, and he takes pride in watching the barn rise from the ground.

“Even though I’m out here, this reflects my work,” said Duane, who is serving 12 years for felony DUI. “It helps time go by.”

jchev Economic Issues, South Carolina, Work Programs

With one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and the death penalty, the US state of Texas seems the last place to embrace a liberal-minded alternative to prison. But when Mitchell Rouse was convicted of two drug offences in Houston, the former x-ray technician who faced a 60-year prison sentence – reduced to 30 years if he pleaded guilty – was instead put on probation and sentenced to read. Published in The Guardian.

“I was doing it because it was a condition of my probation and it would reduce my community hours,” Rouse recalls.

The 42-year-old had turned to drugs as a way of coping with the stress of his job at a hospital where he frequently worked an 80-hour week. But cooking up to a gram of crystal meth a day to feed his habit gradually took its toll on his life at home, which he shared with his wife and three young children. Finally, fearing for his life, Mitchell’s wife turned him into the authorities. “If she hadn’t, I would be dead or destitute by now,” he says.

Five years on, he is free from drugs, holding down a job as a building contractor, and reunited with his family. He describes being sentenced to a reading group as “a miracle” and says the six-week reading course “changed the way I look at life”.

“It made me believe in my own potential. In the group you’re not wrong, you’re not necessarily right either, but your opinion is just as valid as anyone else’s,” he says.

Rouse is one of thousands of offenders across the US who, as an alternative to prison, are placed on a rehabilitation programme called Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL- http://cltl.umassd.edu/home-flash.cfm). Repeat offenders of serious crimes such as armed robbery, assault or drug dealing are made to attend a reading group where they discuss literary classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bell Jar and Of Mice and Men.

Rouse’s group was run by part-time lecturer in liberal studies at Rice University in Houston, Larry Jablecki, who uses the texts of Plato, Mill and Socrates to explore themes of fate, love, anger, liberty, tolerance and empathy. “I particularly liked some of the ideas in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty,” says Mitchell, who now wants to do a PhD in philosophy.

Groups are single sex and the books chosen resonate with some of the issues the offenders may be facing. A male group, for example, may read books with a theme of male identity. A judge, a probation officer and an academic join a session of 30 offenders to talk about issues as equals.

Of the 597 who have completed the course in Brazoria County, Texas, between 1997 and 2008, only 36 (6%) had their probations revoked and were sent to jail.

A year-long study of the first cohort that went through the programme, which was founded in Massachusetts in 1991, found that only 19% had reoffended compared with 42% in a control group. And those from the programme who did reoffend committed less serious crimes.

CLTL is the brainchild of Robert Waxler, a professor of English at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. As an experiment, he convinced his friend, Judge Kane, to take eight criminals who repeatedly came before him and place them on a reading programme that Waxler had devised instead of sending them to prison. It now runs in eight states including Texas, Arizona and New York.

In the UK, nearly half of prisoners reoffend within a year of being released from jail. Could programmes like CLTL work on this side of the Atlantic where Ken Clarke, in his first major speech as justice secretary, indicated that more offenders could be given community sentences by putting a greater emphasis on what he terms “intelligent sentencing”?

Lady Stern, senior research fellow at the international centre for prison studies at King’s College London, is not convinced. “Research does show that the public are largely pro-rehabilitation, but when you take an idea that involves offenders attending a university campus to be part of a reading group, instead of being sentenced to prison, it asks a lot of even the most thoughtful and socially conscious public,” she says.

The initiative was initially met with an inevitable flurry of criticism in the US. Waxler and his supporters were described as “bleeding-heart liberals”.

“They were shocked at the idea of offenders going on to university campuses to read books for free while the students were paying their way through education,” says Waxler. “Some even thought the offenders would steal from them. It only takes one person to prove them right, but it’s never happened.”

In Texas, the public have been largely won over by the success rates and how cheap the programme is to run. Instead of spending a lifetime in prison at a cost of more than $30,000 (£19,520) a year, Rouse’s “rehabilitation” cost the taxpayer just $500 (£325).

But it is the experiences of offenders, some of whom have never read a book before, that Waxler points to.

“In one group we read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway,” he recalls. “The story focuses on Santiago, an old fisherman in Cuba, and opens with some heartache: Santiago is not able to catch fish. We talk about him and the endurance he seems to represent, the very fact that he gets up every morning despite the battering he takes.

“The following time the group meet, one of the offenders wants to share something. He’d been walking down Main Street and he said he could hear, metaphorically speaking, the voices of his neighbourhood. He’d been thinking about returning to his old life, to drugs, but as he listened to those voices, he also heard the voice of Santiago. If Santiago could continue to get up each day and make the right choice then he could do too.”

Santiago, a character in a novel, had become the offender’s role model. For many offenders, some of whom have spent half their lives in jail, it is the first time they’ve had a worthy model, says Waxler.

Literacy is a problem. Offenders are unlikely to be sentenced to the programme if they cannot read. However, those with poor reading are not excluded. The groups may read short stories, or excerpts from a novel may be read aloud so that low-level readers can participate.

In the UK, a version of the programme called Stories Connect is running in a handful of prisons with some success, and in Exeter it has recently moved out into the community for people with drug and alcohol problems. But it does not yet have the support of the criminal justice system, so cannot be an alternative sentencing option for the courts.

Retired probation officer Louise Ross voluntarily runs the small group in Exeter. Participants are referred from the Exeter and North Devon Addiction Service, and were, until three-year funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation ran out in April, made to attend as part of a community service order. Now all attendance is voluntary, but stories of how the programme changes lives are no less impressive.

After years of opiate abuse, Steve Rowe, 50, who joined the first Exeter group three years ago, says: “Stories Connect didn’t just change my life, it saved it.” He explains: “We looked at a section of Oliver Twist, the relationship between Bill Sikes and Nancy. One of us pretended we were Bill while everyone else asked questions. The idea was you responded as much as you could from that character’s point of view. It makes you think about what others think and feel, and really helps you to reflect on yourself.”

Mary Stephenson, a writer, who runs Stories Connect, says more funding is needed. To date, in Exeter, 96 people have been through the programme, but of these only 29 completed the course. This, she says, is largely due to the chaotic lives of the participants, many of whom are battling with drug problems, and the fact that the groups are not an alternative to prison, which removes the main incentive.

There are plans, again subject to funding, for the University of Exeter to run a research project into the effectiveness of the programme in the UK, both inside prisons and out. But until then, there are no quantitative results that prove the programme reduces reoffending.

Next week, Stephenson is attending a roundtable meeting with prisons and probation minister Crispin Blunt, at which she will make the point that the programme could be achieving so much more.

“In terms of tackling reoffending, we need both more funding and the political support to explore it,” says Stephenson. “There’s no doubt among the people I’ve worked with that the success in America could be repeated here.”

Waxler agrees: “I think that one of the great testaments of this programme is that it demonstrates clearly that literature can make a difference to people’s lives,” he says. “I already believed that, but I knew it could also be used to rehabilitate offenders.”

Rouse says it is hard to judge how much the reading group should take credit for turning his life around as he’d already made the decision to change.

“I didn’t want to lose my family,” he says. “But the group did give me the guidance and direction I needed in my life, and without it I’d have spent the rest of my life in jail. It gave me a second chance.”

jchev Alternative Sentencing, Inmate Programs, Texas

When the Wyoming Department of Corrections decided to find a truck-trailer for a mobile welding lab, the road ran through the department’s own backyard. “We had always wanted to do some welding, but part of the problem was the electrical is extremely expensive to set up,” said Betty Abbott, correctional education programs manager. Story from the Billings Gazette.

She estimated that the electrical alone would have cost $35,000 to $40,000 at each prison site.

When Eastern Wyoming College came up with the idea of a mobile welding lab, the model seemed like a good fit for the prison system’s needs. So the department obtained a one-time appropriation of $194,000 from the Legislature to fund the mobile lab project.

One of the challenges was to find a trailer with a generator that could power the mobile lab.

“We didn’t know we already had it,” Abbott said.

A trailer, purchased years before as military surplus, was sitting unused in the weeds at the Wyoming Women’s Center in Lusk.

“We opened it up, and, lo and behold, there’s this huge generator inside it,” Abbott recalled.

So the trailer and generator that once helped run a missile site was refurbished to help run a Department of Corrections job-training program.

A plus in finding a trailer already in inventory was that the $194,000 in state money stretched to include not only the revamped trailer and its new tires, but instructional curriculum at four prison sites, gas tanks, books, helmets, welding rods and other equipment — right down to the earplugs.

The welding lab has stations for training five students at a time and will be used at the Wyoming Women’s Center in Lusk, the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins and the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution in Torrington. The lab will be rolled out next month in Rawlins.

With the economic downturn, Abbott said, it has become more difficult for released prisoners to find jobs. “Employers have more choice.”

But she said there is always going to be demand for welders, if not at the high levels seen during the energy boom. It is also an occupation open to ex-offenders.

“There’s not the prohibition for a felon to work as a welder like there is for things such as pharmacy, nursing, medical, some of those areas where they can’t get licensed,” Abbott said.

While high-demand fields such as medical are closed, Abbott said, the department is looking for other options, such as offering training in Microsoft Office. There is also an apprenticeship program at the fish farm in Lusk, and the department plans to start a wastewater certification program.

jchev Inmate Programs, Wyoming

A new prison program at the Western Missouri Corrections Center in Cameron pairs prisoners with shelter dogs, with the goal of rehabilitating both canines and inmates. Story and video available from Fox 4 KC.

The program has inmates training the dogs to make them more adoptable. Officials with the prison say that the program has been successful at the six other prisons across the state, and the prisoners, normally surrounded by barbed wire and guards, are often changed by the experience.

On Tuesday, inmate Charles Johnson met his new dog, Molly. Many of the dogs, like Molly, have had a rough past, which is something that many of the inmates know well.

“Molly was abandoned by the side of a road by her owner as a pup,” said Johnson. “She’s had to fight it out with wild dogs to eat until she was rescued by the shelter.”

The program, called Puppies for Parole, began at the prison on Tuesday. Inmate Joseph Perou says that he was involved in the program at the prison in Jefferson City before being transferred to Cameron. He says that have dogs in prison changes the atmosphere.

“Not only is it a way to productively pass our time, but also a way to impact the community in which we’ve taken so much from winding up in the position we’re in here today,” said Perou. “Just the thought of being able to give back is rewarding.”

“You will see tears shed from he toughest of guys, I promise,” said Perou. “It’s great. I’m really excited.”

Director of the Department of Corrections George Lombardi wants to see the Puppies for Parole program in every prison in the state. He says the inmates bond with an abused or neglected dog, because often they can relate.

“If you open up the files of inmates, frequently that is an issue, psychological, sexual, abuse, abandonment, neglect,” said Lombardi, who says that the program gives inmates a chance to prove that they’re more than just a prisoner.

“Here’s a dog that accepts love from them and gives it back unconditionally,” said Lombardi. “(It) has no idea what the person came to prison for, just treats them as a human being.”

The Puppies for Parole program, which is funded entirely through private donations, is set to begin at a prison in St. Joseph on Wednesday.

“I think it’s a wonderful program,” said Johnson. “It will do as much for the offenders as it does for the dogs we save.”

For more information about the Puppies for Parole program, check out http://doc.mo.gov/division/dai/puppies.php.

jchev Inmate Programs, Missouri

California’s inmate labor program, a self-sufficient system that doesn’t rely on the state’s deficit-riddled General Fund, has adopted a balanced budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year – one of the few solvent pieces of state government. News reported in the Capitol Weekly.

The governing board of the California Prison Industry Authority (CalPIA) approved the $180 million budget as part of its annual plan at its June 29 meeting. The profit margin is down, but still in the black.

“In these tough economic times the CalPIA has been able to maintain profitability through increased efficiencies, thereby continuing its self sufficiency,” said the Authority’s general manager, Chuck Pattillo. “CalPIA is the CDCR’s (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) most successful rehabilitative program, and as a self sufficient program, CalPIA business operations help reduce prison violence, reimburse victims, save taxpayer dollars, and develop work skills.”

“I am proud of the hard work of the dedicated staff at CALPIA,” continued Pattillo. “In this atmosphere of layoffs and fiscal uncertainty, the CALPIA staff has been resilient and unwavering in their commitment to our mission.”

The annual plan represents the Authority’s projection of revenues and expenditures. It takes into consideration changes in the economy, legislation, the state budget, and inmate populations.

The proposed Annual Plan includes revenues of $180.4 million and fully funds all CALPIA operations and expenses, including $2.3 million to finance the Career Technical Education (CTE) programs, “while providing a minimal net profit,” the agency said. The CalPIA projects an average of 6,333 inmate positions, a reduction of 198 positions – about 3 percent – from 2009-10. The agency also anticipates funding 621 civil service positions, a reduction of 29 positions, or 4 percent from the mid-year review.

Under state law, CALPIA is required to operate a self-sufficient work program for prisoners by generating sufficient funds from the sale of products and services to pay for its expenses. The goods and services are used by the Department of Corrections to reduce its operational costs. The budget estimates a net profit level of $1.6 million, a 63 percent decrease – about $2.7 million – under the $4.3 million estimated for the current year.

jchev California, Inmate Programs

Some might assume that there are few opportunities to dance, laugh or speak in iambic pentameter at San Quentin State Prison. But on Monday evening, 10 inmates will prove them wrong by performing “Romeo and Juliet” in the prison’s Presbyterian Chapel, which will be the culmination of seventh months preparation in their Shakespeare class led by members of the Marin Shakespeare Company. Reported by Bay City News.

Monday’s 5:30 p.m. performance, directed by the company’s Suraya Keating, will be the third full show in the class’s seven-year history, a company director said.

Acting is “completely foreign” to some of the men who come into the program, managing director Lesley Currier said, adding that the challenge is often daunting for the students.

Preparation for the performance began in September, when the actors read through three different Shakespearian plays and ultimately selected this year’s work, she said.

Safety precautions at the prison mean that outsiders, including the actresses playing the parts of the Nurse, Lady Capulet and Juliet, aren’t allowed to make physical contact with inmates.

So how does one perform “Romeo and Juliet” when actors playing the star-crossed lovers aren’t allowed to press palms, let alone kiss?

With creative acting, of course.

“It has been a great learning experience for them,” Currier said. “They’ve done a great job of stepping up to the plate.”

It’s a tough crowd too, she said, as the bulk of the 400 expected audience members are men with life sentences and the prison workers who discipline them.

“It takes a lot of guts for 1/8the actors 3/8 to stand up and perform in front of their peers,” she said.

But Currier said the audience responds with respect. San Quentin is one of the few state correctional facilities to have an arts program.

When actors deliver their lines, “gasps of recognition” can sometimes be heard from the responsive audience, she said, because the tragic play’s themes of murder, forgiveness, hatred and regret are resonant with the actors and audience.

The men gathered in the yard to rehearse their lines, often drawing curiosity from neighbors. But their eventual success and experiences with the arts program have inspired others to give Elizabethan theater a go.

“They’ve become spokesmen within the prison system,” she said. “They are very articulate about how getting involved in a program like this is a benefit for all the men at the prison.”

Despite frustration from the surrounding community that the company is wasting resources on its prison arts program, Currier said the company prides itself on its outreach work, which includes programs for low-income youth around the county.

“It’s part of our community,” Currier said. “And we can do something that enhances that community. Shakespeare can help them be better people and feel better about themselves. They may never leave San Quentin, but they’re still becoming more educated and responsible human beings.”

The performances have not been without their own drama, she said. Last year, during the performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” one of the actors had to miss the first 20 minutes of the show when his attorney appeared at the prison before curtain time.

This is the second year the performance will take place in the chapel. Two years ago, “Macbeth” was acted out in the prison art room in front of a cramped audience of 30, Currier said.

Actors will perform for two hours without intermission because inmates are required to be back in their cells by 7:45 p.m., she said.

“We were worried they’d have to leave before the show was over, and then they wouldn’t know what happens to Romeo and Juliet,” she said.

jchev CA Marin County, Inmate Programs

Vicente Moreno could have turned back to the streets when he finished his prison term, but a program that slain East Palo Alto community leader David Lewis helped create saved him, he said. “When I got out of prison I had nothing. I was struggling to find a job. My shoes were ragged walking everywhere trying to find work,” he said. Moreno has a small son and was determined to stay out of prison. He also wanted to marry his son’s mother, but he had no money or prospects, he said. Story reported at Palo Alto Online.

“With this help, I got some relief,” he said, recalling the food and transitional housing he received through the East Palo Alto Parolee Reentry Program. He was able to earn enough money working at Safeway and for Caltrans to marry his sweetheart and provide for his family, he said.

Moreno will soon start a job with San Mateo County in human resources, where “they don’t care about my record. I’m going to work real hard,” he said.

The Parolee Reentry Program, launched in 2007, assesses the needs of residents returning to East Palo Alto from prison and works to reintegrate them into the community by addressing the root causes of criminal behavior and providing access and referrals to substance-abuse treatment, mental health and support groups, computer and job-skills training, educational opportunities, transitional housing, medical care and other services.

Lewis was the chief architect of the program, according to East Palo Alto police Chief Ronald Davis. California Assemblyman Ira Ruskin introduced Assembly Bill 2436, which provided $3.4 million ($949,000 annually) to run the pilot program.

In 2009, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) partnered with the program to hire parolees in a 14-month pilot job program.

The re-entry program has been highly successful, Davis said, keeping a much greater percentage of parolees from returning to a life of crime than average.

Corey Bell is a soft-spoken man who served a 20-year sentence in prison. Coming out was like living in a Rip Van Winkle world, one filled with computers and cell phones and other technologies that didn’t exist when he went into prison. Bell said he’d heard about the re-entry program while still incarcerated and felt he was ready to tackle the challenge.

“When I walked out of prison, I knew I wasn’t going back,” he said.

He’s been at the center, located at Free at Last for 18 months, showing up daily to take classes and learn computer skills “for my future,” he said. Since arriving, he has gone to truck-driving school and earned his forklift license. Soon, he might have a job with a concrete company, he said.

“I want people to know that a lot of inmates really do come out with their head on right,” he said. Having zero opportunities makes staying straight that much harder, he said.

“You don’t know when their spirits are broken,” he said of parolees. “Give them the opportunity to change their lives.”

For all its success, however, the program faces a cloudy future.

Lewis’ untimely shooting death on June 9 has left Bob Hoover, director of the program, deeply concerned about the program’s long-term viability.

“About three to four weeks ago, (Lewis) said, ‘We need to find more money to keep the project open, even if the state won’t pay for it.’ He was trying to use his connections. Now I don’t know what we’ll do,” Hoover said, sitting in a meeting room at Free at Last, the drug-rehabilitation center that Lewis co-founded.

The re-entry program needs about $450,000 a year, which includes providing transitional housing, he said. Hoover hopes someone will help establish a long-lasting base of support to continue Lewis’ legacy regardless of state funding.

On June 10, Hoover, along with scores of others, gathered for an impromptu memorial for Lewis. Ironically, the meeting was originally scheduled to announce the closure of the program on June 30, after 3.5 years of funding by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

State funding is expected to be restored, for a two-year period. But the program won’t reopen until at least September and when it does, rather than being community-based, the program will be regional and will serve parolees throughout San Mateo County, said Brian Lee, police department liaison.

Parolees said they rely on the program’s continuity. They have thrived under the community-based model that offers support and counseling. Some are also recovering from issues such as childhood abuse, according to Dolores Ferrell, counselor case manager at the Day Reporting Center (DRC).

Ferrell said she worries that the break in services from July to September will affect clients in transition.

“Some clients are very vulnerable. I worry that we’ve given them enough tools to work through. This is the refuge spot,” she said.

Gustavo Pulido is one such client. His “road to recovery” still isn’t yet that smooth, he said. Closing the program will make it harder without the support of counselors who have provided continuity, he said.

Pulido, who was known as “Ogre” during his prison days, is proud he has left that persona behind. Now he is just “Mr. Pulido.”

A large man with powerful, tattooed arms, he takes classes with titles such as “Enlightenment” and “Anger Management.” When he got out of prison, Pulido was starving. He has five children to support. The Caltrans job program put money in his pocket, and sometimes he can take his children to the movies, he said.

Getting a job has been challenging, he said. Employers are impressed by his demeanor and attitude, but his rap sheet of drug arrests trips him up.

“It’s discouraging. I could walk down to the street corner and get a pound of meth right now to sell before I get a job. The crack spots are one block away. I could either go to the corner or go to the DRC. I’d rather go to the DRC,” he said.

The re-entry program is about setting a higher standard for oneself, he said. “Now I know my self worth and I’m worth more than that,” he said.

Part of re-entry includes doing community service as reparations for damaging the community. On Tuesday afternoon, the three men painted and repaired Free at Last’s aging exterior. Sometimes, they talk to school children about their experiences.

Their community involvement is part of Lewis’ legacy, Ferrell said. She looked at the men appreciatively. “We are building the next generation of David Lewises,” she said.

jchev CA Palo Alto, Inmate Programs, Parole

The scared-straight reputation of Michigan’s prison boot camp, a program for which Kwame Kilpatrick has qualified to dramatically shorten his stay behind bars, is undeserved, according to critics. Reported in The Detroit News.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy on Wednesday filed objections to a Michigan Department of Corrections notice that the former mayor of Detroit can enter the program that could shorten his 1 1/2 – to 5-year sentence for criminal probation violations to as little as 90 days.

“Years ago, it was a viable program,” Worthy said. “Now, it has morphed into a halfway house where they sit around and talk about each others’ feelings. There is no true boot camp anymore.”

Budget pressures, prison overcrowding and complaints about the military-style boot camp’s effectiveness have resulted in changes that some say watered down the original hardcore physical and psychological challenge. More time now is spent in classrooms to prepare prisoners for their early release — and to prevent them from winding up back in prison.

“It, quite frankly, has become a program to empty out the prisons of low-level offenders,” Worthy said.

Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner received notice Wednesday that Kilpatrick qualified for the program, just two weeks after sentencing him to prison for hiding more than $500,000 in assets that could have been applied to $1 million restitution he promised the city in a 2008 plea-deal to avoid trial in the text message scandal.

Kilpatrick’s lawyer, Arnold Reed, said prison officials didn’t necessarily recommend his client for the program, which includes a 30-day community placement, but asked the judge for his input. Both Kilpatrick and the judge are required to approve participation in the Special Alternative Incarceration program at the state’s Cassidy Lake Facility near Chelsea. The judge isn’t required to hold a pubic hearing on the matter.

According to Department of Corrections literature, guards act like drill sergeants, yelling at inmates, requiring strict discipline, rigid military-style behavior, vigorous physical exercise and menial labor. The program aims at changing participants’ “anti-social attitudes, criminal lifestyles, and prepare themselves for re-entry into the community as productive, law-abiding citizens.”

Mel Grieschaber, executive director of the union that represents corrections officers, said the boot camp’s trainers still have pride in their work, but admits, “the imagery of 20 years ago when it started, the physical part isn’t as tough. It still has the flavor of a military boot camp, breaking down people to build them up, and a far more strict routine and discipline than regular prison, but there also is much more emphasis on programmatic and therapeutic aspects now.”

Federal funds dried up for boot camps in the late 1990s, after a U.S. Department of Justice study concluded similar camps throughout the country “fail to reduce repeat offending after release compared to having similar offenders serve time on probation or parole, both for adults and for juveniles.”

A 2007 Michigan Auditor General’s report found the state’s boot camp graduates became repeat offenders at a higher rate than prisoners who qualified for the program but didn’t participate.

“When studies were done, it shows boot camps don’t work,” said Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Almost every state has done away with them because they don’t work. Ninety days isn’t enough time to change people’s behaviors. They found out the military-style stuff … wasn’t working.”

Cropsey said state funding for the $11 million program was set to expire this year, but corrections authorities want it to continue because it saves about $2.5 million a year and reduces the inmate population by 1,500 to 2,000 annually.

jchev Inmate Programs, MI Wayne County, Michigan

Inmates at the Klong Prem Central Prison will kick off an alternative World Cup football tournament today. The tournament, known as the World Cup 2010 Behind Bars, is being held in parallel with, but one day before, the official Fifa World Cup final in South Africa which begins tomorrow. Story from the Bangkok Post. More pictures at CNN.

The event is a collaboration of the Corrections Department, the Football Association of Thailand, the Sports Authority of Thailand and the Tourism and Sports Ministry.

Two similar tournaments were successfully held at Klong Prem prison in 2002 and 2006. Sixteen teams made up of inmates from various countries will contest this year’s tournament. Each team is made up of seven players.

Today’s opening match will see inmates from South Africa take on Mexico, followed by France v Uruguay.

Tomorrow, South Africa will kick off the official World Cup against Mexico with France and Uruguay facing off later in the day.

The prison tournament will start again on June 25, one day before the second round of 16 qualified teams in the World Cup in South Africa begins.

jchev Inmate Programs, Thailand

Budget-driven decisions will keep more inmates behind bars in Lac qui Parle and Swift counties as the heat of summer arrives. Decisions to stop funding their participation in the sentence-to-serve program as of July 1 means a number of inmates in the two counties will no longer be leaving their cells for work sites. News from the West Central Tribune.

The sentence-to-serve program was launched in the 1980s in large part to help ease crowding and tensions in county jails, according to Midge Christianson, director of 6W Community Corrections.

Inmates who participate in the program spend many daytime hours at work sites, and typically return to their cells with most of their energy spent.

Lac qui Parle, Chippewa and Yellow Medicine counties contract with 6W Community Corrections to oversee sentence-to-serve programs for inmates in their custody. Swift County also obtains services from 6W Community Corrections, but contracts directly with the Minnesota Department of Corrections for sentence-to-serve.

All four of the counties faced the same budget issue in recent weeks. The state reduced its share of funding for the program from 50 percent to 25 percent of the costs.

Chippewa and Yellow Medicine counties opted to pick up the difference. They will also absorb an increased cost due to the withdrawal of Lac qui Parle County from the three-county program. Chippewa County will see its cost for sentence-to-serve rise by $9,676 for the remaining six months of the year. Yellow Medicine County will see its costs rise by $10,893.

Christianson said commissioners from Swift and Lac qui Parle counties serving on the 6W Corrections board made known that the decision to leave the program was due entirely to budget concerns. They fear that the writing is on the wall: With the state facing the prospect of an even larger budget deficit next year, they expect state support for the program to be eliminated altogether.

Some counties, Kandiyohi among them, already pay 100 percent of the costs for operating sentence-to-serve programs.

Its benefits go well beyond easing crowding and tensions in jails, according to Christianson.

The 6W crew has been involved with work ranging from helping plant trees for the Lac qui Parle County Soil and Water Conservation District to clearing invasive cedars from prairie lands at the Upper Sioux Agency State Park.

The program administered by 6W Corrections has been led by supervisors with experience in the construction trades. Its current supervisor, Mike Martin, leads work crews on projects that have ranged from remodeling a portion of the Chippewa County Courthouse to building wheelchair ramps at senior meal sites.

Christianson said she is not aware of any research showing whether the sentence-to-serve program reduces recidivism rates. However, she said there is lots of anecdotal evidence showing its benefits to inmates. Her corrections agents have heard from a number of participants who were able to find employment after their release from jail due to the work experience.

Workers in the program also earn credit of $6 an hour for their labor. It must be applied first toward any fines they may owe. Being able to pay a fine can be daunting for many unemployed inmates in today’s economy, she noted. Being able to pay off their fines can help inmates get a better start on a productive life once they leave jail.

In 2009, the 6W program in Chippewa, Lac qui Parle and Yellow Medicine counties logged 7,470 hours of labor and included 48 different inmate workers.

jchev Economic Issues, Inmate Programs, Minnesota, Sentencing

Over the past few weeks, inmates throughout the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) have been raising money for an extraordinary cause, the Wee Ones Nursery program located inside the walls of the Indiana Women’s Prison (IWP). Report from the Indiana Department of Corrections.

The Wee Ones Nursery Program (WON) is a voluntary program offered at IWP to eligible pregnant offenders with the intent of providing parenting education and to ensure quality time to strengthen the mother-infant bond during the initial months after the infant’s birth. For funding, the WON program currently relies on grants and donations.

When facilities throughout the state were asked to send donations to help the program, the response was incredible. Almost half of IDOC facilities have sent in money and supplies. Within the first week, the amount totaled over $4000. Currently, over $5,660 has been collected, with more continuing to pour in.

All of the funds donated were raised through offender fundraisers, ranging from cash donations to food sales. IDOC Staff helped oversee the fundraisers, but the money came directly from the offenders themselves.

Among the facilities that have donated are: the Correctional Industrial Facility, Indian State Prison, Edinburgh, Madison, Miami, Pendleton, Plainfield, Putnamville, Wabash Valley, and Westville Correctional Facilities. Staff at the Reception Diagnostic Center, IDOC’s male intake unit, have also collected baby food, diapers, clothing and cash donations.

In addition to the money already collected, an additional $1000-$1,500 is anticipated to come from fundraisers at the Indianapolis Re-Entry Educational Facility, Branchville, and South Bend Juvenile Correctional Facilities.

“Giving selflessly to others is an important lesson and component of an offender’s rehabilitation. Every year, our offenders donate their time and money to various charities and organizations in the communities outside of prison walls. It is an extraordinary opportunity to see offenders taking the initiative to raise money for an equally unique and wonderful offender program.”

The WON program began at IWP in early 2008 for eligible pregnant offenders. Since its inception, over 30 infants and their mothers have enjoyed the benefits of the Wee Ones Nursery. Earlier this year the WON program received donations from members of the Indiana General Assembly at a baby shower hosted by the Women’s Caucus, POWER (Political Organization for Women’s Education and Representation) group.

jchev Indiana, Inmate Programs

A program which helps medium- to maximum-security inmates at the District of Columbia Department of Corrections acquire skills needed to pursue productive lives beyond prison walls, has been lauded for outstanding achievement. The acknowledgment, announced in light of a 57 percent GED attainment rate among participants, highlights the “Don’t Forget Us Peer Tutorial” program that was launched nearly three years ago at the jail. Story and additional photos on Afro.com.

At the time of its inception, the program’s participants came from varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds, with the pursuit of education being a common thread among them.

The program continues to operate with limited resources and without traditional teacher involvement. DOC officials say what makes it so unique is that it’s led by inmates, who provide group and individualized instruction at two program-intensive housing units inside the jail.

Additionally, the program is so serious that inmates bent on participation must adhere to a strict code of conduct, as well offer their compliance by signing a copy of the program’s rules and regulations.

DOC spokeswoman Michon Parker said DFU is based on the concept of “each one, teach one,” learning models as emphasized in the recent hit movie, Precious.

The program, which was featured in the April issue of the DOC’s Corrections Today publication, is currently designed for all-males enrollees. According to Parker, a similar project is on tap for their female counterparts.

DOC Director Devon Brown said DFU currently enrolls more than 250 inmates and serves as the foundation of the jail’s rehabilitative efforts. He said DFU is voluntary on the part of inmates and that it is so popular there is a waiting list of inmates poised for enrollment.

“We’ve made a concerted effort to ensure that the program is available and that all inmates [come to] realize that education is the most important elements of what they have to build upon,” Brown said. “They have to realize that without that GED, their prospects for employment, or, in essence, for re-entering society on a constructive note, are limited.”

Brown said word of the program tends to be easily spread throughout the facility.

“This is not an isolated program,” Brown said. “It’s quite obvious that education is what we emphasize, even from the choice of TV viewing that’s allowed. We choose what the inmates watch and everything [has to be] educationally enriching –even down to the card games they play. So it permeates that if you come to the jail, we’re going to emphasize that you become engaged in educational activities.”

Jauhar Abraham, cofounder of the District-based nonprofit, Peaceaholics – which advocates on behalf of inmates – said the program was the brainchild of two inmates. One had been tutoring the other, he said. The tutor, being highly educated, explained to jail officials that he noticed how inmates had a hunger for education.

“[Eventually], we were in a meeting with [jail officials] about starting a GED program, because so many of the guys were coming in uneducated,” Abraham recalled of the program’s start. “They couldn’t read or write and didn’t have a high school diploma.”
He said the program’s success is a reflection of its founders’ vision.

“When you come into the program you have to be serious about learning,” Abraham said. “And the people who work in the jail can’t do that [for prospective participants] as this is something that has to come from within.”

Said Abraham: “I don’t know who’s taking credit for the program now, but I know who started it and how big of an impact it has made on inmates.”

jchev Inmate Programs, Washington DC

The last graduating class from a military-style prison boot camp in Buena Vista received certificates Thursday, ending a program that failed to meet expectations and became too costly to run. If Thursday’s class of 23 follows the record of previous graduates, 12 of them will commit new crimes within three years of their release. News from The Denver Post.

Although given big rewards — including shorter prison sentences — 51 percent of the 155 inmates released from prison through boot camp in fiscal year 2007 have already returned to prison.

The 51 percent recidivism rate of these nonviolent offenders was only 2 percentage points better than the record of inmates convicted of crimes such as robbery and murder.

“The lowest-risk offenders go into the camp,” said Katherine Sanguinetti, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections. “You would have expected a huge difference in recidivism.”

The boot camp graduates were rewarded as though their prospects for success were dramatically raised. The graduates were five times as likely to win an early release as their peers. They qualified for release 28 months before their parole eligibility dates and were immediately eligible for sentence reductions.

But the deciding factor leading to the closure of the program was it became too costly as fewer inmates qualified or volunteered for the program. Just in the past year, the cost per inmate rose from $78 a day to $110.

Low-risk inmates drop
Colorado’s prison system has seen a steady drop in the number of minimum-security inmates, while the number of more dangerous offenders is climbing steadily, Sanguinetti said. Between 1999 and 2008, the number of boot camp enrollees dropped 40 percent from 540 to 322.

In a state suffering a budget crisis, the DOC had to shift funds from the boot camp to higher-security prisons, she said.

The three-month boot camp, which opened in 1991, offered a GED program, substance-abuse treatment and immediate consequences for bad behavior. About 90 percent of the offenders had drug- or alcohol-abuse problems, Sanguinetti said.

But the duration of the counseling may not have been long enough to result in permanent change. They may have done better if given ongoing drug treatment, she said.

Colorado is far from the only state to achieve disappointing results from a boot camp program. In Pennsylvania, a 2000 study found that boot camp graduates were actually more likely to fail at following parole restrictions after their release from prison, and only slightly less likely than the general prison population to commit new crimes.

A June 2003 U.S. Department of Justice study determined that nationally there were only small or negligible differences in recidivism rates between boot camp graduates and the general prison population.

Life-changing program
Brandon Butler, 32, however said the program changed his life. By age 17, he was using methamphetamine, carrying a gun and burglarizing homes. He was looking at an 18-year prison sentence when he was sent to boot camp in 2000. It was physically and emotionally exhausting.

“It broke me. Once you reach the bottom of the pit and you survive, you realize you can do anything. I discovered myself. I made it,” he said. “I’m bummed they are getting rid of the program.”

He currently is a district manager for an optical company.

But graduates of the boot camp also included Joaquin Benzor, 19, who later was a suspect in the killing of 38-year-old Charles Mills III in Greeley when he was killed in a shootout with Weld County sheriff’s deputies in January 1997.

The program had a high dropout rate. Through March 2008, 2,570 of the inmates enrolled in the boot camp — 33 percent — dropped out or were removed. Of 7,742 inmates in the program, 957 completed their GEDs in the program.

Those who couldn’t hack it and were later released from prison had a tougher time adjusting to society than inmates who never went there at all. Of the 98 boot camp dropouts released in 2007, 61 percent reoffended compared with 53 percent of the general population.

Brian Hicks, who prosecutors say founded the Elite Eight, a subset of the Rolling 30’s Crips Denver street gang, is among those who dropped out of boot camp. He mentored gang member Willie Clark, who was driving Hicks’ SUV when he fatally shot Denver Bronco Darrent Williams on Jan. 1, 2007.

Hicks is charged along with Clark and another defendant in the December 2006 witness-killing murder of Kalonniann Clark, who was to testify that Hicks shot her a year earlier outside a nightclub.

jchev Colorado, Inmate Programs

They wore white jackets, hovered anxiously over the stove, and couldn’t wait to see the judges’ reactions as they sampled the food. An episode of “Top Chef?” Nope, the first-ever cooking competition at Rikers Island, where a dozen incarcerated women whipped up appetizers, main courses and desserts. News, with video, available from the New York Daily News.

The chefs-in-training are among the 60 inmates who take culinary arts classes at the correctional facility, even though it will be a long time before they can apply to be a professional sous chef or pastry chef in a restaurant.

The two teams, one of younger inmates and the other of older inmates, prepared their food for French Culinary Institute former dean Alain Sailhac and three other judges.

The younger women’s team won in the appetizer category for the corn chowder and the older women took top honors for their dessert: apple strudel with homemade whipped cream. There was a tie for the main courses, said Department of Correction spokesman Stephen Morello. Judges couldn’t decide between the oven-barbecued salmon and the sautéed tilapia with lemon caper sauce.

Rikers’ two city-run schools include the Island Academy, with students between 16 and 18, and the Horizon Academy, which enrolls slightly older students. All the teenage inmates must take the culinary arts course, plus basic courses like math and English.

Besides Sailhac, Tuesday’s judges included Melba Wilson, the owner/operator of Melba’s Restaurant in Harlem and Melba’s Catering; Danny Prince, co-author of the “Firehouse Cookbook,” and a retired NYC firefighter and Department of Corrections chief Larry Davis.

Some of the budding chefs hope to pursue restaurant careers, Morello said. In the meantime, they feel a sense of accomplishment. “It let them experience the gratification that comes from doing something right and from feeding people,” Morello said.

jchev Inmate Programs, New York