Correctional Services : Education On Probation

Teachers behind bars are well known for being flexible. Whenever jail or prison authorities have recognized a need for educational opportunities (in a Distance Learning situation, behind the bars of individual cells, out of the trunk of a car or in a converted interview room) correctional educators must come through to meet those needs.

Correctional educators need to be versatile. Sometimes programs have to completely reinvent themselves at a moment’s notice when an entire classroom is moved to a new, more secure location. Conditions can quickly change to accommodate a different gender as the prison population itself shifts. Unfortunately, Correctional Education is often regarded as the "unwanted step-child" of a local school district’s Adult Ed. program. Those who have chosen to teach in this field are quick to accept a helping hand whenever one is offered.

In Los Angeles County, educational alliances have come in many different (and sometimes unusual) forms. The custody division of the L.A. County Sheriff’s department, which supports the largest jail education program in the U.S. has been forced to make some unusual alliances for the sake of it’s own fiscal benefit. Some-times the two major concerns of education and custody overlap: after all, it costs money to operate schools and jails. But putting them together can double the headache for correctional administrators.

For example, federal inmates are currently being housed in county facilities under special contracts to relieve overcrowding. This situation has created real problems for the County Custody and the Correctional Education Divisions. Both divisions must now follow a whole new set of security procedures mandated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The county-based Correctional Education Division must also take on board federal provisions for the education of prisoners.

As a result of this situation, the California Department of Corrections’ Office of Parole and Probation has made a huge effort to improve what is viewed as follow-up education. Usually, an inmate in the L.A. County jails will be available to education programs for less than a year. The maximum sentence for a county crime is 18 months and with good time/work time reductions, or with plea bargaining, one or two months in a county facility are common. Consequently, many students complete their sentences before they finish their courses of study. Some students are transferred to various "big houses" in state or even federal prisons. There, those who do not speak English well are being persuaded or forced to attend school.

But what of those who are released to parole or probation? With the cooperation of parole agents and probation officers, many of these same inmates are now being encouraged to attend programs at several locations throughout L.A. County.
Doug Retig, Coordinator of California Department of Corrections programs for the Correctional Education Division, spoke about the complexities of working for all these different layers of government. "There are so many things which we are never quite sure of, " said Doug. "Last week, I referred to our students as "prisoners" and the head of one of the facilities corrected me and said that they were inmates. The week before, I was told that everyone in our programs should be referred to as a prisoner, even though they are mostly free to go home at night. The bottom line is that I’m not sure what to call our students!
Retig went on to say: "We currently have classrooms at seven locations from San Diego to the San Fernando Valley. At each location we have literacy programs as well as substance abuse education taught as the STAR programs."

"At the community based facilities, our clients are referred to us by their parole officers. Most of these people are in work furlough situations. They come to school, then they go on with their everyday lives on the outside. Whatever the physical structure of the facility, all of our teachers must be versed in a learning lab setting and many levels of instruction. ESL is just one of them," Retig said.

Students are assessed using the CASAS system and are then enrolled in Computer Assisted Instruction using the INVEST system. This is the high-tech, multilevel teaching and student management system that the California Department of Corrections has mandated. Tier 1 provides Literacy-Based Instruction, Tier 2 focuses on Adult Basic Education, and Tier 3 furnishes General Education Development (GED) Exam Preparation.

Retig said: "It includes an ESL program entitled English Express, which has an audio portion. This is our only ESL teaching tool, other than a little one-on-one from the teacher. Our goal with an ESL student is to see them become literate in English. Our ultimate goal, for every student is to make these people employable. The belief is that people go to jail because they have a deficiency in some area and consequently they think they have no alternative but to commit crimes. We offer a complete program of Job Search, employability skills, resume writing, and job development, but the bottom line is that they need to be literate in English and they should have a diploma or GED if they are going to make it in our society."

Whenever necessary, students are referred to local adult schools in their neighborhood or geographic areas. Some are referred to community colleges. At the Weingart Center, in downtown Los Angeles, there is a literacy program that provides personal computers for GED (which ranks as one of the most-used, state-sponsored computer labs in California) and students are allowed to live at the facility for up to one year.

"Here, " says Lynn Kaiser, an academic teacher at the Weingart Center, "the beauty of the site is that it is residential and we can offer a whole array of services. In addition to education, we have sessions in recovery, life skills and job development in an all-inclusive approach. Our goal is to help people who haven’t, perhaps, had the same advantages as most, having to deal with extreme poverty and dysfunctional families. We can offer help in all areas and make a difference, more so than those programs that are at the parole offices, because we’re not as rigidly structured."

Recently, Kasier was appointed to a committee at the Weingart Center to explore ways to reach out to the community. "There was one guy who was a resident who ended up singing the national anthem at Dodger Stadium," said Kaiser. "Another young woman, who was in our education program, decided to make some changes in her life. She committed herself to becoming more self aware. I decided to follow her after she left our program, since she had good skills and could do well in the learning lab. She recently became a drug and alcohol counselor and she is set on sharing her experiences and helping other people down the line. Periodically, she still comes in to the class to earn additional points in her own probation program. I believe she will succeed and I further believe she will go very, very far."