Jail Inmates Learn Skills for Building Better Future

The James A. Musick Jail near El Toro, Calif., expects to graduate its first class of students this month.

There will not be a ceremony, but many of the 50 minimum-security inmates--both men and women--now enrolled in sewing, welding and construction courses are expected to receive college certificates for their classroom achievements.

The inmates will then have an opportunity to meet with career placement counselors from Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana, which offers the classes under contract with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. With help from the counselors, they can try to find jobs that will match their new training and turn their lives around once they are released from jail.

“If it helps individuals find success . . . and not find themselves back in jail, then that’s what we want to do,” Assistant Sheriff John Hewitt said. “If these people find good jobs, then we reduce the (number of possible crime) victims.”

The Sheriff’s Department started the job-training program last July in an effort to improve the self-image of criminals and provide an incentive to avoid future law-breaking, Hewitt said.

Similar Training Programs

Other county jails and prison systems have conducted similar training programs to rehabilitate convicted criminals. But in Orange County, the idea was partly motivated by economics.

As the county struggles to deal with its overcrowded jail system, the program seeks to reduce the number of jail inmates in the future and reduce the need for expensive correctional facilities.

“There’s no attempt at rehabilitation,” said Capt. Ed Hendry, who runs the Musick Jail. “We’re not telling them not to steal or not to take drugs. That’s been tried and it doesn’t work.

“The sheriff’s staff has been working as hard as they can to get people out of jail and keep people from spending more time in jail. This is one of many programs.”

Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth praised the training idea.

“It doesn’t hurt to get people to work,” Roth said. “It’s long overdue. People should be doing more than sitting around and playing Ping-Pong.”

College Certifies Instructors

Rancho Santiago College determines the curriculum for the courses and it certifies the instructors for the classes, who are employed by the Sheriff’s Department. Although inmates attend classes at the jail, they are considered part-time students of the college, just as if they were on the main campus in Santa Ana. Instructors take attendance and give tests, as in other classes, and those who get passing grades receive certificates.

The program is funded indirectly by the state. The college receives a stipend from the state for each student taught, an allocation that pays the salaries of the jail instructors without cost to the county.

In a corrugated tin warehouse at the 100-acre jail compound recently, about 36 women inmates worked over their sewing machines making stuffed dolls and bibs for Orangewood, the county’s emergency shelter for children. They also made blankets and nightgowns for women inmates, and repaired tears in clothing for male inmates.

Some worked on special machines for making the rugged stitching needed for seams in the jail-issue denim jeans. Others hand-stitched flowers on bibs for the children.

Interviews with the inmates were banned by jail officials.

All classes are open to both men and women. But so far, only women have applied for sewing instruction and only men for welding and construction, according to Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Richard J. Olson. If a woman requested instruction in a class other than the traditionally female occupation of sewing, special arrangements would have to be made, he said. Jail regulations prohibit the mingling of the male and female populations, and there are currently no provisions to offer all classes to all inmates.

Classes at Musick are held every weekday from early in the morning until about 2:30 p.m., with a break for lunch. At the Theo Lacey branch jail in Orange, the college also runs a class in cabinet making.

Many of the welding, sewing and carpentry facilities have been available at Musick for years but were previously used only to manufacture jail clothing and make repairs. The inmates also operate a farm on which they grow avocados, corn and other vegetables and raise cattle and chickens for jail consumption.

Until recently, there was no intent to provide job training. But with the college involvement, the training has become formalized.

‘Very Needy Population’

“I think this is a very needy population,” said John Nixon, assistant dean of the college’s continuing-education division. “(It is) a population that I think could benefit most from encouragement, motivation and sound educational programs.”

Orange County’s classes are partly modeled after a 2-year-old training program in San Bernardino County, where officials say there has been a positive impact.

“I think the inmates are a little more motivated now; they’re behaving themselves better,” said Gus Gonzalez, a San Bernardino jail counselor. “The overall attitude of everybody has improved.”

In Orange County, Hendry said, classes already are at capacity and there is a waiting list.

Most of the 1,200 Musick inmates are serving sentences for drunk driving, narcotics violations or petty theft ranging from 90 days to about three months. Inmates who take the classes receive an extra-curricular benefit--two days dropped from their sentence for every five days of classes they attend. Inmates who do other work at the jail, such as farming or kitchen duty, get the same arrangement.

No Added Risks

The classes do not create additional security risks at the medium-security jail, Hendry said. Inmates who disrupt the courses know they could be punished with a longer sentence or transferred to the Santa Ana Central Jail, where prisoners are allowed fewer liberties.

“Some of my fences around here (at Musick) are only 4 feet high; they can walk right out of here if they want to,” Hendry said.

Vocational-training courses are not offered at Central Jail. If the program is successful, however, Hendry said it could be expanded to other jails. A classroom where maximum-security inmates could be trained to use computers is under consideration for the planned Gypsum Canyon Jail in the Anaheim Hills, he said.

And by October, inmates in all the security classifications will have access to a full-time job-placement counselor being provided by Rancho Santiago College under a state grant.

“When you’re talking about providing a job to somebody who has paid their debt to society, I don’t think you are worried about what they did,” Hendry said. “It’s what they’re going to do.”