DC Inmate GED Opportunities
Virgil Ventura of the District wants to be an auto mechanic. Melvin Parks of the District wants a business degree. Roman Fuentes of Lorton wants something valuable he can take with him when he returns to the Philippines. Reported in the Washington Post.
For most graduates, an education offers hope for the future. And for the April graduates of the General Educational Development program at the Alexandria Detention Center, getting an education gives them a chance to focus on the future while serving time for past actions.
Ventura was at the center on a malicious wounding charge. Parks violated his probation. Fuentes was being deported because of a firearms charge.
“Half of my guys are getting released in the next six months,” Krista Sofonia, the center’s adult education coordinator, said in April. “For them, they kind of have to have this to take the next step.”
Interest in the GED diploma program has increased at the center, as has the number of inmates passing the test.
Enrollment in the GED and English as a Second Language programs rose from 58 students in the 2004-05 school year to 259 in 2008-09. As of March, 169 students were enrolled.
In the 2004-05 school year, 53 percent of the inmates who took the GED test passed. By 2008-09, 66 percent had passed. In March, there was a 61 percent pass rate. Sheriff Dana Lawhorne said he tries to emphasize the program to the inmates.
“Our hope is when they return to the community, they can be gainfully employed,” he said.
Lawhorne created a GED unit, where students enrolled in the program live together and can tutor one another. The unit “creates a positive learning atmosphere,” he said.
The D.C. Department of Corrections launched a GED program in April 2008, in which inmates serve as tutors within housing units. Spokeswoman Sylvia Lane said that 142 inmates completed the program and that 57 percent passed the test.
Tutors and inmates live together in Prince George’s County’s education unit, as well.
“We find the focus is much better if they are in one unit rather than pulling them from all over the jail,” said Mary Lou McDonough, director of the county’s Department of Corrections.
The Prince George’s program is limited to how many tests the jail can afford and how many people can live in the GED housing unit. Thirty to 36 inmates are in the education unit at one time, McDonough said. Over the past five years, the inmates average a 44 percent pass rate, she said.
At the Alexandria Detention Center graduation ceremony in April, inmates in caps and gowns marched from a tiny law library through the jail’s gymnasium, passing family members and other inmates before taking their seats.
Alexandria Police Chief Earl L. Cook spoke of the importance of having a GED diploma and how it puts the graduates on a “safer, more defined road” to success. He also encouraged the graduates to seize the opportunity now. “Time and again, my lesson is try to grab it now. The future is not promised,” Cook said.
For Parks, receiving a GED diploma is an accomplishment long overdue. And his mother, Vanessa Parks, agreed. She cheered in the audience as her son’s name was called.
“It was my dream come true for my son,” Vanessa Parks said.
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 
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D.C. passed a law in 2003 forbidding the jail from releasing inmates after 10 p.m. and before 7 a.m. after neighbors in the gentrifying Hill East community voiced anxieties about having ex-prisoners roaming their streets in the middle of the night. Nickles told The Examiner that the law has cost the city millions in civil rights lawsuits. When a judge orders an inmate freed, the paperwork takes a while to catch up. Under current law, inmates spend another night in jail if the paperwork isn’t finished by 10 p.m., he said. “The fact that [a neighbor] may be inconvenienced is not a reason to have a free man or woman go back to jail, be strip-searched and spend another night locked up,” the attorney general said. “The Constitution isn’t convenient.” In a letter to council Chairman Vince Gray, Nickles said that if the council doesn’t repeal the law by March 4, he will declare it unconstitutional and order jail officials to ignore it.
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