OK kids,it's long and you'll be reading it at the same time as myself,I glanced and I think you'll like it...
7:58 PM 3/7/1998
Second chance
Most experts agree that vocational programs
in Texas prisons are not doing enough in
preparing their prisoners
By L.M. SIXEL
Copyright 1998 Houston Chronicle
KEITH SIBLEY was in the middle of a computer course at
the state prison unit in Beaumont when he was suddenly
transferred to a pre-release facility in Overton.
Sibley, who had invested a month in the course, said his
training came to an end because his new unit didn't offer the
course.
Now, instead of looking for a computer-related job in the
booming Texas economy, Sibley, who was just released
from prison after serving 11 years for robbery and
attempted sexual assault, is hoping to get a job working in a
restaurant.
It may not pay much above the minimum wage, he said, but
at least it's a start.
Sibley's situation isn't unique.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has come a long
way from the day when preparing parolees to compete in
the job market meant putting them to work in the fields or
pressing license plates.
Today, inmates can get their high school equivalency
degree, study computers, learn secretarial skills and a whole
host of other job skills that could help them find work upon
release and reduce the likelihood of their returning to prison.
Yet some of the department's practices and programs put
more emphasis on using inmates to run its prisons and its
factories than in teaching felons vocational skills, Texas
prison critics say.
As a result, felons, who already face a tough time finding
employers who are willing to hire them, typically don't get a
chance to develop their chosen vocational skills on the job
in the prison factories.
So when they are released into the booming Texas
economy, where skilled workers are in high demand, many
aren't as prepared to compete as they should be.
It's never been a high enough priority to prepare inmates for
release, said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of
the Texas Senate's Criminal Justice Committee.
That's a shortsighted approach, said Whitmire, because "it's
a hell of a lot cheaper" to get them educated and trained
than to have them return to prison for lack of a job.
For example, it costs $980 per inmate for graduate
equivalency degree and vocational classes. Beyond that, it
costs $14,440 to house, feed and provide medical care for
a prisoner annually.
And with about one in two parolees returning to prison
within three years of being released, the importance of
having an effective job training program in prison is clear to
see, Whitmire says.
Preparing for job market
The two vehicles that prepare inmates for the job market
are the prison's Windham School District and the Prison
Industries Program. The school district generally is praised
for the work it does in teaching inmates to read and earn
their high school diplomas. The Prison Industries Program
catches most of the flak.
Typically in Texas prisons, unless an inmate is in segregation
or in school because he functions below the seventh-grade
level, he is put to work planting crops, sweeping, tending
the livestock, cooking the food and doing the laundry.
While those jobs are important to keep the prison running,
there aren't a lot of good-paying jobs on the outside that
require those simple skills.
Real on-the-job opportunities are scarce inside the prison
walls. Only 8,300 or 4 to 5 percent of Texas prisoners get a
chance to work in the prison factories that make everything
from license plates to plastic dishes to mattresses, according
to a 1996 performance report by the Texas comptroller's
office.
And despite the fact that the primary goal of the Prison
Industries Program is to give inmates an opportunity for
on-the-job training, state prison officials see it as a resource
for keeping the prison units running, the report said.
In fact, prison plant managers say they prefer inmates who
are serving life sentences so they don't have to cope with
work-force turnover, according to the report. That seems
counterproductive, according to the comptroller's report,
given that employment is a key factor of reducing the
chance someone will return to prison.
A long-time inmate is here on time and is more reliable, said
James Germany, assistant plant manager for the license
plate factory at the Wynne Unit in Huntsville. Someone with
a two-year sentence many times is not as reliable, he said.
Glen Castlebury said he is tired of hearing complaints about
the Prison Industries Program.
"Look, by God, we could set up computer education and
teach high-end electronics if you, Legislature, gave us $10
million to invest and you, Legislature, are willing to hear the
bitching and the screaming," said Castlebury, spokesman for
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Austin.
Moreover, private businesses have put a lot of heat on the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice for running factories
with free labor that competes with their for-profit factories,
he said.
Consequently, the Legislature hasn't appropriated a nickel in
training for new industries for many years, Castlebury said.
And he argues that prison jobs such as sweeping up and
working in the fields teach valuable job skills, such as how
to take pride in your work and how to take instruction.
Part of the problem is that the Prison Industries Program
doesn't do a very good job at attracting business to
taxpayer-supported entities, according to the comptroller's
report. If the program created more sales and demand for
its products, it could create additional prison jobs so more
inmates could learn marketable skills, it said.
The program has had an advisory committee since 1989 to
provide guidance on new product development, inmate
work policies, closing and the elimination of unprofitable
lines.
However, the members do not represent major industries,
labor organizations or job-training providers and lack
expertise in marketing, manufacturing and economics,
according to the comptroller's report.
The committee was never active, Castlebury said. It just
didn't do anything partly because members couldn't even get
reimbursed for their transportation expenses to the
meetings.
That should change with a new law that went into effect in
September that would create an advisory committee with
representatives of industry and labor to fix the deficiencies
of the Prison Industries Program.
An on-the-job training program at one of state's privately
run prisons shows some promise. Unlike the state-run
system, inmates at the private facility are paid and they have
to go through interviews to get a job to make computer
circuit boards and heating and air-conditioning valves and
fittings.
While it has been operating for only four years, which
makes it hard to gauge effectiveness, only 13 of the 200
prisoners have returned to prison, said Rep. Ray Allen,
R-Grand Prairie, vice chairman of the Committee on
Corrections.
Harsh prison life
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice likes to pride
itself on how harsh life is inside its walls. Texas prisoners
don't enjoy the luxury of air conditioning, boasts one news
release, so the cell blocks stay hot all summer long. No one
sits on their duffs either, according to the release. "Not in
Texas," when the wake-up call comes each morning at 3:30
a.m.
That emphasis on punishment, however, sometimes conflicts
with getting inmates the training they need. While prison
insiders say coordination is better than it used to be, an
inmate's education often takes a back seat. Inmates get
released before they get a chance to finish their training
course, or get transferred for medical or security reasons to
another unit.
To give felons a head start, the Legislature gave the prisons
its own school system. The Windham School District is
distinctly different from most school districts in Texas: It
serves adults, it has no PTA and the average student never
got beyond the ninth grade.
Windham, with an average daily enrollment of 23,800
students, focuses most of its $57 million annual budget on
getting prisoners the basic academic education they lack.
Remedial education is the lifeblood of Windham, said
Superintendent Mike Morrow. For many inmates, that
means just learning how to read well enough to understand
safety manuals and read a letter from home.
Windham's efforts are impressive: 22 percent of the illiterate
prisoners got to the fourth-grade level, and 5,027 of the
more advanced prisoners got their GED degrees in 1997.
For many inmates, it's the first time they've been recognized
for accomplishing something positive in their lives, Morrow
said.
Windham also offers 50 vocational courses to students who
are within about two years of release. The classes range
from plumbing to automotive repair to food service
preparation. Some of the courses are more helpful than
others in preparing felons for life in the "world."
An awful lot of offenders come out with horticulture training,
said Scott E. James, employment supervisor of Project
Reintegration of Offenders, a program that tries to find jobs
for former felons and is run in cooperation with the Texas
Workforce Commission and the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice. Those jobs aren't too plentiful, don't pay
very well and they're seasonal, he said.
And there isn't a lot of demand for the inmates who come
out of prison with flower-arranging expertise, said Pat
Scott, employment supervisor for Project RIO in Houston.
Other Windham courses are on the mark, however.
Roy Harrison gave high marks to the welding class he took
at the Ramsey III unit at Rosharon. Harrison, who was
recently released from prison after serving eight years for
aggravated robbery, said the six-month welding class he
finished in 1995 helped him land a $10.50-an-hour welding
job in Houston.
James said if more felons came out of prison with welding
training, he could put them to work.
That's just the sort of news that Jerry Bernhardt likes to
hear and goes out of his way to solicit.
Bernhardt, director of career and technology education at
Windham, has re-energized the vocational program at the
school district during the last couple of years by inviting
industry leaders to prison for the first time to explain what
kind of trained workers they need.
The results have been promising.
Mike LaPointe, vice president of J.L. Steel, a highway
contractor in Roanoke and chairman of the Employee
Relations Committee for Associated General Contractors of
Texas, got together with Bernhardt last year to discuss the
needs of the construction industry. LaPointe suggested they
adopt a training program recognized in the construction
industry. Windham school officials promptly made it part of
its construction-related curriculum.
It makes them more employable, said LaPointe, who has
hired several former felons.
Donald K. Harris, technical training and development
coordinator for Stewart & Stevenson Services in Houston,
visited the school district in Huntsville and recommended
that the engine repair class needed to retool. It needed
some modern electronic testing equipment such as
hand-held monitors and scanners, he said.
When Virgil Russell visited the small-engine repair shop at
the Wynne Unit in Huntsville, he found that teachers had to
scrounge around to find used mowers and Army surplus
engines because they had no money to buy engines.
The engines and teaching materials just weren't up-to-date,
said Russell, executive director of the Equipment and Engine
Training Council in Austin.
Briggs & Stratton, the large manufacturer of small engines,
jumped in and donated several new engines and trained the
instructors on repair techniques. That will boost the
employment prospects of inmates coming out of prison,
Russell said. A few inmates already have passed a
certification test that's well-recognized in the industry.
Inmate Tyrone Robinson said he was inspired to take the
mechanics class because he enjoys working with engines
and believes it will pay well when he is released.
"I may not start on an $85,000 engine," said the
26-year-old, but he hopes the skill will bring him about $10
an hour. He has served six years of a 12-year sentence for
car theft and attempted murder.
Like all school districts, Windham has its problems. Some
popular classes such as truck driving and business computer
applications have a waiting list of more than 300 students,
Bernhardt said.
Women, who make up 7 percent of the state's prison
inmates, also have to wait if they want to take classes in
typically male-dominated occupations such as welding and
automotive repair, Morrow said. Those classes are in
demand and the women who get the training tend to get
good paying jobs when they're released from prison, he
said.
Most of the female inmates take secretarial courses,
horticulture and landscape design, Morrow said.
Windham has another problem: Seventy-four percent of the
students are minorities, but only 16 percent of its teachers
are black or Hispanic. Morrow said he only hires
experienced teachers and turnover is low so there are just
25 to 30 positions to fill each year.
That racial and ethnic disparity, however, bothers Whitmire.
"There are no role models for African-Americans in Dalhart,
Texas," he said. "They only see other inmates."
Part of the problem is that the prisons are located in rural
areas rather than the big cities that have more minority
teachers, he said. Rural areas courted the prisons because
they see them as economic boons and consequently, offered
free land and other incentives while the big cities have
shunned the prisons.
State law prohibits inmates with a high school diploma from
participating in the free vocational training programs offered
by Windham and must pay for any college-level
post-secondary classes they take.
Rep. Allen Hightower, D-Huntsville, chairman of the House
Corrections Committee, said taxpayers don't want to foot
the bill.
Hightower said he has had hundreds of constituents tell him
that they don't think it's fair that inmates should get a free
education while their child who has straight A's or was
All-State in basketball has to pay for courses.
"I'm for inmates getting all the education they want, but it's
difficult to explain that to someone who works two jobs or
is a single mother," said Hightower, who is well aware of the
strong connection between lack of education and
recidivism, the tendency to return to crime.
Inmate job interviews
It's hard enough for anyone to look for a job. But when
you've got a prison record, it's like pulling a ball and chain
with you to job interviews, inmates say.
Project RIO, however, has made it much easier for former
felons to find jobs. Of the 18,334 ex-cons in Texas RIO
helped between September and August 1997, 14,077
found jobs.
In Houston, Project RIO looks like any outplacement
office, albeit a bit shabbier.
There are telephones with which to call employers,
computers with which to check job listings and copiers with
which to make r‚sum‚s. There's one big difference: RIO
counselors call employers to let them know their job
applicant has just been released from prison.
If the employer is comfortable with that, then the former
offender goes for an interview.
Having someone else break the news was a real relief for
Harrison when he went to his welding interview. He said he
had an impossible time for the first two weeks out of prison
because employers wouldn't consider him for a job because
of his record.
It was hard to have doors slammed in your face, said
Harrison, who stopped by Project RIO one recent
afternoon to tell his counselor the good news about his job.
At one temporary employment firm, Harrison said, he was
told to leave immediately when he told them about his
prison record.
"That's why this place is such a haven," he said.
Enjoy DD |
