Pubdate: Sun, 12 Mar 2000
Source: Advocate, The (LA)
Copyright: 2000 The Advocate, Capital City Press
Contact:  525 Lafayette St., Baton Rouge, LA  70802
Website: http://www.theadvocate.com/
Author: Mike Dunne

EDUCATING INMATES PART OF ANSWER, EXPERTS SAY

His criminal career path from fetus to death row felon began like
most: poverty, absent father, under-educated mother addicted to
cocaine and prescription drugs.

By fifth grade, B.D.'s problems begin -- escalating absences from
school, grade failures, his aunt killed at his home, his mother sent
to prison.

By 14, he's had his first beer and marijuana cigarette. At age 18, he
drops out of ninth grade. At age 22, he is arrested for cocaine
possession and enters the adult criminal system, serving time and on
probation.

By age 25 he is arrested for murder and receives the death
penalty.

If he is an average death row inmate, he will live another 11 years
before he is executed -- costing the taxpayers at minimum $15,000 a
year on top of what has already been spent for his public defender and
appeals.

LSU Sociologist Luceia LeDoux, who studies criminals and has worked in
the juvenile justice system, said adult inmates have "common
characteristics: they cannot read, they cannot write, they have no
work skills. What they really know how to do is hang out on the
street, do drugs, boost cars, break into houses, et cetera."

Judge Jules Edwards III said many of the people he sees in his 15th
Judicial District Courtroom in Lafayette "don't have a birth
certificate, a Social Security number, a state identification card.
They are completely out of the mainstream."

Judge Bob Downing of East Baton Rouge's 19th Judicial District Court
said the late Corrections Secretary C. Paul Phelps told him "the boys
who can't read in the third grade are the ones who are going to be the
criminals. They become the class clown, the bully, or the withdrawn
person who later shoots up the school."

Louisiana has the highest illiteracy rate and highest per capita
incarceration rates, Downing points out. "They could be related --
duhhhh," Downing said.

Downing, now on the civil bench, said as a criminal judge he would
sentence offenders to attend adult or vocational education as a
condition of probation whenever he could. He was told he was trying
"to rehabilitate people who have never been habilitated," a quip other
judges also echoed.

Recently retired Steve Winham of the State Budget Office said "we as a
state don't seem to be too good at investment budgeting," or spending
money now to avoid a bigger bill later. "Every year we face a budget
hole. We don't spend money to save money in the future."

Corrections Secretary Richard Stalder said he thinks offering inmates
more education is part of the answer to reducing the numbers of people
incarcerated.

"The most common finding of 20 years of research is that inmates
exposed to education programs are less likely to be recidivists,"
Stalder said, referring to inmates who get out and return to prison
for new crimes.

In Louisiana, adult inmates are offered the opportunity to participate
in literacy programs, adult basic education, general education
development (GED) and other self-improvement programs.

In October, about 3,569 of the approximately 34,000 adult inmates were
in educational programs.

"Education opportunities for adults are somewhat restricted" by lack
of classroom space, he said.

Building and operating an additional classroom would cost about
$120,000 a year. Each additional evening and night class using
existing classrooms would cost about $50,000 a year for a teacher and
materials for 25 inmates per class.

The department also provides two other educational programs -- one of
which is funded by a federal grant that expires this year.

One is a job skills-education program designed to increase both
academic and vocational skills. In fiscal year 1998-99, 1,191 inmates
completed the course. One year of tracking showed only 14.2 percent
committed another crime, compared to 31.1 percent of a control group,
according to a report Stalder prepared for legislators.

The Office of Corrections Services would like to expand the job
skills-education program to the four state prisons that currently do
not have it. That would cost $1.153 million a year.

Stalder touts as a success the "Project Metamorphosis" program. It
includes education, occupational training, life skills training and
job placement for inmates who will soon leave the prison system. While
referring to the program as "exemplary," Stalder said the department
does not have the $380,000 annually for salaries and supplies to keep
it going when its federal grant runs out in October.

Two inmates from Hunt Correctional Center's Project Metamorphosis,
said inmates need more education and job training.

Carlos Harrison, 30, was living in Houston when he technically
violated his probation and was sent back to complete his five-year
term.

"I had problems keeping a job," he said, and admits he did not work
well with others.

Project Metamorphosis "gives you the ability to know your
shortcomings," he said. He has a background in electronics but lacks
communication skills, so that is what he is working on. He feels he
has been learning job and parenting skills.

Eric Kingston, 56, is serving his second prison sentence at Hunt on a
drug charge. "If I had been more or less educated like I am now being
trained, I don't think I'd have" returned to using drugs or prison, he
said.

He passionately argues that inmates should not be allowed to do
nothing while in prison. "We spend too much money to incarcerate a
person for them to do nothing," he said.

"We need more" education and treatment programs, he
said.

"It should be mandatory that when you leave you can read and write,"
he said.

Tavalyn Session, 23, of New Orleans, wears a welder's mask on her head
as she learns a trade she hopes she can use to support herself when
she is released from prison. She pleaded guilty to possession of crack
cocaine and entered the IMPACT program, which started as a boot-camp
type program that is now more of a drug treatment and education
program with a boot-camp atmosphere of discipline.

"It is changing me a lot. I am getting discipline, self-respect. I'm
learning to deal with other people" and better handle stress.

"I've learned I can't control others; I can only control myself," she
said.

She likes welding and hopes to get a job doing it when she gets out.
"I think that I can do anything if I put my mind to it," she said.

"I never thought I would better myself," she said.

Stalder said for every 100 inmates to complete the six-month IMPACT
program, about $1 million is saved. The program spends more money per
prisoner than traditional incarceration but saves money because
inmates spend less time behind bars.

But not all inmates can be saved, said Daniel Rossignol, 46, who will
get out in October after serving five years on possession of drugs and
possession of stolen property. He and the others say there are many
inmates who will do nothing to better themselves unless they are
required to do so.

Some prisoners who arrive at Hunt Correctional Center see prison as
part of their life path and not as a deterrent, Warden C.M. "Marty"
Lensing said.

Katherine Martin, director of the O'Brien House halfway house, said
she has seen a positive change in the quality of inmates coming from
Hunt. O'Brien House gets some inmates who have completed the IMPACT
program and are transitioning back into the community. She praises the
efforts of the prisons to help inmates change.

Judge Fredricka Wicker of Jefferson Parish's 24th Judicial District
said "it is all behavior modification. If you don't change behavior"
nothing will change, she said.

Downing of East Baton Rouge's 19th Judicial District said the prison
system is destined to fail without changing people. "In the current
system, you take people who make bad decisions, put them in a place
where they can't make any decisions and when they get out we expect
them to make good decisions?"

Making good decisions starts with education, say the judges and
sociologists.

David Corona, executive director for high schools and alternative
programs in the East Baton Rouge Parish Schools, said he is "a firm
believer people need to be held responsible for their actions." But,
he also realizes that if educators and other programs can identify
potential criminals earlier in life, "that prevention on the front end
is better than having to house people on the back end."

"The schools are being held accountable to do things we used to
consider parental duties. If someone doesn't do it, we as a society
are going to pay," he said.

The local public school system has created a number of alternative
education programs in the last three years. Two programs are for
overage middle school students, or those two or three years behind
where they should be. "They are not pinpointed as being so far behind.
They are in a setting where they can function without feeling the
pressure of being marked as failures," Corona said.

The school system also has alternative schools for students who don't
function well in the normal school setting, a high school for those
who have dropped out and returned or plan to drop out, and an
alternative school for students who have been expelled. "In some
cases, it gives them a fresh start." he said.

But such programs are expensive because the number of students per
teacher is lower than the normal classroom. East Baton Rouge Parish
schools also offer discipline centers, where suspended students can
continue to be supervised in an educational atmosphere.

"We try to keep kids in schools, keep them out of problems and keep
them focused" on continuing their education, Corona said.

"We're one of the few" school systems that offer such alternatives, he
said. The local system would like to expand those programs even more,
but funding is limited, he said. 
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