Prison education struggles amid cuts

Ex-convict Jorge Renaud discovered philosophy and psychology in classes taught behind the razor-wire fences and cinder-block walls of Texas prisons.

It changed his life.

Renaud’s family traveled constantly when he was a child, following the crops to such southwestern farming hubs as Dimmitt and Cactus, he said. At 17, he joined the U.S. Army and spent three years in the service. When he got out in 1977, Renaud turned to making quick money from quick crimes, after he committed burglary of a habitation. It landed him in the state penitentiary.

“Why does anybody commit a crime? Stupidity, ignorance, irresponsibility,” he said. “I thought I needed material possessions.”

After he was released in 1980, he committed two aggravated robberies within the next decade and went back to prison.


That’s when Renaud turned to post-secondary education, with help from the prison education system. He said the classes helped him find his way out of the prison stint.

“Prison has to offer a hope, a rope to those who are drowning,” he said. “To some people, it’s religion. But even then, you will want to have some critical thinking skills. Where are you going to get that?”
There are fewer educational opportunities for Texas prison inmates following state lawmakers’ decision to slash the Windham School District’s budget by more than a fourth, from $130.6 million for the 2010-11 academic year to $95 million in 2011-12, district spokeswoman Bambi Kiser said.

More than 77,500 prisoners enrolled in classes last year. Established in 1969, Windham is funded by the Texas Education Agency and is overseen by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

She said the district predicted 16,750 fewer offenders will be able to take classes for the 2011-12 school year.

District officials made the most cuts to schools with student enrollments averaging 40 or older because studies have shown that educational programs are more likely to reduce recidivism for younger offenders, Kiser said.
Texas Panhandle prisons house about 11,250 inmates, and more than half were taking classes last year, according to the Department of Criminal Justice and Windham documents. Of the eight regional units, nearly half have student enrollments averaging 40 or older.

All of those prison school budgets took significant cuts — the most at the Jordan Unit in Pampa, which was reduced by nearly $292,000, Kiser said.

The cuts amounted to a streamlined administration, where some principals will supervise more than one school and travel to other campuses about once a week, Kiser said. The budget reduction also means a loss of 271 full-time employees — 22 in the Texas Panhandle units, she said.

On top of the layoffs, the district’s consumable supplies budget was slashed by about half. These items include pencils, paper and toner cartridges, among other school supplies.

The Criminal Justice Department denied requests to sit in classes or talk to current prison students about the educational programs.

Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, who served as the vice chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee from 2004 to 2010, said all state departments had to trim their budgets.

“Public education is very important in the prison system because it does help when it comes to recidivism,” Seliger said. “But Windham has gotten very expensive per completion.”

Of all the school district’s students, nearly 7 percent — or 5,287 prisoners — obtained a General Education Development certificate last year, according to Windham documents. Nearly 340 offenders, or 5 percent of students, in the Panhandle prisons received a GED, district documents state.
“It doesn’t mean we’ve turned our backs on prisoner education,” Seliger said. “We just need to do it as effectively and economically as possible.”

Lawmakers had to prioritize during the last legislative session, said Ana Yanez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a nonprofit organization that researches and analyzes criminal justice policies. But, she argued, the district will not increase the number of students obtaining GED diplomas by making it unavailable. The district will only get worse results that way, she said.

Statewide budget cuts dealt the prison education system another blow. The district did not renew seven college contracts, Kiser said. The higher education agencies offered vocational training and post-
secondary education for the prisoners.

Amarillo College, which provided diesel mechanics and data processing courses, served nearly 50 students a year at the Clements and Neal units, Kiser said. But AC and Clarendon College were among those that did not receive a renewed contract, she said.

The only college that will now serve the region’s prisons is Western Texas College, based in Snyder, she said.
Lawmakers also gutted state reimbursable funds — assistance money that prisoners can use for continuing education — by about 42 percent, Kiser said. The funds are similar to student loans in that offenders must pay back what they borrow, and that is returned to the state, she said.

Renaud, 55, who is slated to receive a master’s of science in social work in May 2012, said most offenders cannot afford continuing education without aid, and the reductions do not bode well for prison recidivism rates.
“Education helps you better relate to people. It gives you the discipline and communication skills to keep a job,” he said. “Education can give you tools to deal with a moral situation.”

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, said there is a need for prisoner education, but officials should look at a different model.

“Windham has become too top-heavy,” he said. “It has outlived its usefulness.”
Whitmire said the Criminal Justice Department could do away with administrative costs by outsourcing teaching to area junior colleges.

Yanez-Correa said the department also needs to maintain prisoner education by exploring innovative ways to get better outcomes.


The coalition is currently surveying all prisoners who have written to the organization and their families on what has helped them, she said. A lot of them have said the Windham School District has made a positive influence on them, she said.

“If they don’t have that, what is it that they have?”
Yanez-Correa asked.

Bottom line: It’s a win-win situation to provide a prisoner with education, she said.

She said educating prisoners is a better return for taxpayers because of its negative correlation with recidivism.

How do prisoners get so fit?

A new book Felon Fitness,(www.sureshotbooks.com) has collated all the workouts that prisoners use to stay in shape. How did they work for our reporter?

It is not the point of it, exactly, but there is no doubt that prison is an excellent place to get fit. Whenever lawyer William Kroger went to visit his clients inside, he noticed what great shape they were in. Eventually he set about collecting exercises and routines from all over the California state prison system. The result is Felon Fitness, the complete guide to getting a body just like a convict serving 20 years to life.

I committed myself to attempting a selection of the exercises in the book, even though I haven't done anything wrong. Frankly most of them are pretty ordinary – I'd done a number of them at the gym that very morning except in the book they are demonstrated by men with lots of tattoos using "prison dumbbells" fashioned from bed sheets and old magazines. A few, however, looked criminally difficult.

First on my list was the handstand press-up: you do a handstand, resting your feet on an adjacent wall for balance, and then raise and lower yourself on your arms. Prisoner Manuel Meza does 10 of these every Wednesday, as part of a gruelling five-day workout routine. I managed precisely zero.

Likewise, I failed to achieve a single "celly" press-up, where your cellmate lies on your back, a personal humiliation that left me trapped face down on the floor until such time as my wife decided she had other matters to attend to.

Some inspirational words from the prisoners ("Because I am in shape and by the grace of God," writes one, "I was able to fight off two inmates wielding homemade knives, with minor injuries.") spurred me on, and I breezed through 20 Romanian squats, a type of one-legged knee-bend with your back leg resting on a chair. After that I called it a day because, as I said, I'd already been to the gym that morning and I needed to save enough strength to untie my shoes later on.

But one day soon I will manage a handstand press-up, then five, then 10. And then everyone around here will stop messing with me.   Visit www.sureshotbooks.com

Prisons Ban Reading Shakespeare for Inmates

When Malcolm X made the transition from a crimminal to a Civil Rights icon he credited the books he was able to read while in prison for his success. But the catalyst that took a man from the streets to the history books is often denied to those incarcerated today as many U.S. prisons have started banning most reading materials.

Nationwide, the works of Toni Morrison and Sojourner Truth have reportedly been banned in prisons, even Shakespeare. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a suit against the Berkeley County Jail in South Carolina, because inmates there are allegedly only allowed to read the Bible. And by July this year, the Connecticut Department of Corrections plans to further limit the books inmates there can read over concerns that an ex-con took part in the notorious Petit family murders in 2007 after reading violent books in prison.


“The idea that this horrific crime was a result of what they read in jail and not other factors is simplistic,” said David C. Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, to theLoop21. “The Bible contains many scenes of appalling violence and cruelty, but no one suggests that prisoners should not be allowed to read the Bible.”

A publication called the Prison Legal News (PLN), which produces materials informing inmates of their rights, is the plaintiff in the ACLU’s lawsuit against Berkeley County Detention Center, along with the U.S. Justice Department. In 2008, a staffer at the jail allegedly told a PLN staffer that the publication was banned there due to its Bible-only policy.

PLN editor Paul Wright told theLoop21 that over the last 10 to 15 years, correctional facilities have become increasingly likely to implement policies of blanket censorship on reading materials. During that timeframe, he said that PLN has been involved in a few dozen lawsuits involving reading bans in prisons. He said the inclination towards censorship reflects how “overall, all Americans’ civil and constitutional rights are being undermined, not just in prisons and jails.”

While no one’s arguing that prisoners should be reading books that instruct them on, say, picking locks or tunnel digging to help them escape, imposing blanket bans on what they can read does a disservice to them and to society generally. Campus Progress points out, for example, that there’s a direct correlation between illiteracy and incarceration. Like Malcolm X when he entered prison, an estimated 70 percent of inmates cannot read above a grade school level. That figure grows to 85 percent among juvenile inmates. Given that at 38.3 percent,  the number of African Americans in prison is nearly triple their share of the U.S. population overall, reading bans in correctional facilities directly impact the ability of many African American immates to educate themselves.



Reading has long been used as a vehicle to help rehabilitate prisoners.

“Research shows the best predictors that a prisoner will be able to return to the community and live a productive life depends on whether they’ve maintained connections to the outside word,” Fathi said. “Allowing prisoners to receive books, newspapers and magazine helps them engage and is very important from a public safety standpoint.”

The late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was just one high-profile advocate for protecting prisoners’ right to read. He argued, “When the prison gates slam behind an inmate, he does not lose his human quality; his yearning for self-respect does not end; nor is his quest for self-realization concluded. If anything, the needs for identity and self-respect are more compelling in the dehumanizing prison environment.”

In the effort to get tough on crime there has been an overall shift to prison being about solely about punishment, not about rehabilitation. But with so many prison inmates being addicts or having severe mental health needs, our prisons have become the new asylums and rehab clinics. A prison record already reduces the chances of employment post-release for most ex-convicts. If denied even the basics of rehabilitation -- reading for self-enrichment -- what hope is there for those convicted to ever have a productive life outside of the penal system?

Brief sentences become defacto "life sentences" as drug and non-violent crime offenders are trapped behind a label they cannot shake.

Jail inmates, western Pa. college students study criminology together

BEAVER, Pa. — On nearly every Tuesday morning since mid-January, a group of about 16 students has gathered at the Beaver County Jail.

Most are young, in their early 20s. They've come to Beaver County from all over the United States, as far away as California and Maine. They sit paired together at small classroom tables, listening to guest speakers, discussing textbooks and working on group projects.

At the end of each class, when the jail's thick metal front door slams shut, half of the students are on one side and half are on the other.

The class, simply titled "Criminology," brings Geneva College undergraduates and jail inmates together to talk about the justice system — how it functions, how it's flawed and its impact on communities and society as a whole.
And there's an added twist. Most classes feature a guest speaker who works in local law enforcement or the judicial system.

"It's not every day you get to talk to the same people that put you in here," said Geovannie Albertorio, 22, a class member who is serving a five- to 10-year sentence for armed robbery.

If there's one overarching theme to the discussions, it's this: The American criminal justice system is badly in need of reform.

That's one thing that the inmates, academics and most of the guests tended to agree on. Speakers included District Attorney Anthony Berosh, Detective Capt. Tony McClure and President Judge John D. McBride, who spoke to the class for the first time in the spring 2011 semester.

"I wanted to get across to (the class) that we judges even function within a system and we have restrictions on what we can do and can't do," McBride said later. "We have to keep working. We have to keep doing our job and discovering better ways to do things."

The idea for the class came to Beaver County Jail Chaplain Denny Ugoletti about four years ago, when he was thumbing through an issue of American Jails Magazine and read about a similar program affiliated with Temple University.

The basic premise was that bringing college students and incarcerated people together in a learning environment would benefit everyone involved, and create more informed, more open-minded citizens in the long run.

It works, Ugoletti said. He now sees it happen in Beaver County, semester after semester.
"It breaks down stereotypes," he said. "Many students come in here with a fear. They have these preconceived notions that inmates are gorillas, thugs, monsters."

And it lets inmates experience taking a college course with college students, reading the same books, doing the same work and taking the same tests. In about half of the seven semesters since the class began, Ugoletti said, an inmate student has had the highest grade.

"That was the first time I'd been in a class since I was 19," said Anthony Terry, who's now 26 and serving a federal sentence for possession with intent to distribute cocaine. "You're showing yourself you can still do things you thought you gave up on. ... You're not just this drug dealer that's locked up."

The class is extremely popular with jail residents, said Deputy Warden Carol Steele-Smith, who coordinates the program on the jail side. To narrow the list, she asks prospective students to write an essay about why they want to take the class.

It's so popular with Geneva students that Brad Frey, the sociology professor who leads the course, said it fills almost immediately when course registration opens.

The experience is transformative, Frey said, for students inside, as well as outside, the walls of the jail.

"As good as it is to hear the (guest speakers) present, it's the collaboration between the Geneva students and the inmate students that makes it work," Frey said. "The learning is so rich."

With more prisoners and no place to put them, Kansas faces hard choices

Kansas is officially out of beds for male prisoners, with a population last week of 8,411 — above the system’s capacity of 8,259. So corrections leaders have started talking seriously about two options: Either find millions of dollars to house more prisoners or start letting them go.

A few years ago, Kansas had figured out how to control its prison population. It had solved the equation and become a national model.

No more. Kansas is officially out of beds for male prisoners, with a population last week of 8,411 — above the system’s capacity of 8,259. In 10 years, the state is projected to be nearly 2,000 beds short.

So Kansas corrections leaders have started talking seriously about two options: Either find millions of dollars to house more prisoners — at a time when the state is struggling to pay for schools and social services — or start letting them go.

Another option — crowding prisoners — would just lead to violence and lawsuits, prison officials say.

Many states, including Mississippi, have already retreated from years of tough crime laws. Kansas experts are looking at the Mississippi solution of making nonviolent offenders eligible for parole after they have served 25 percent of their sentences.

Another possibility suggested by the Kansas Sentencing Commission is to increase “good time” credit for some inmates from 15 or 20 percent to up to 50 percent, meaning prisoners who stay out of trouble could be released after serving half of their sentences.

But early releases in either form would violate promises the state made to those who have suffered at the hands of criminals, said Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome Gorman.

“I don’t know how we can do that to the victims of the state of Kansas,” he said.

Even nonviolent inmates such as drug addicts and burglars are mostly chronic criminals who will get out and cause trouble, he said, and the state is already failing to revoke parolees who should be put back in prison.

“They entrusted a job to police, prosecutors and judges and now they’re saying we don’t care about the effort,” Gorman said.

Wyandotte County District Court Judge Ernest L. Johnson, chairman of the Sentencing Commission, agreed that early releases would be a step back from the state’s sentencing grid system meant to impose consistent and true prison time.

“But what do you do when there isn’t enough money? You’ve got to change something,” he said.

Advocates of change point to a national poll released last month that seemed to indicate support for early releases.

“Our sense is the public has been out ahead of elected officials on this,” said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project.

In a project poll, 91 percent agreed with this statement: “It does not matter whether a nonviolent offender is in prison for 21 or 24 or 27 months. What really matters is the system does a better job of making sure that when an offender does get out, he is less likely to commit another crime.”

In Missouri, the situation is not as dire. The state does not face a projected bed shortage until 2013.

But the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission in August started providing judges with costs of sentencing options in cases. That was so judges could compare costs of prison and alternatives in nonviolent cases, officials said.

The Missouri commission also reports on risks of recidivism, which can increase when a low-level criminal is put behind bars, said Supreme Court Judge Michael A. Wolff, commission chairman.

“People who go to prison learn things in prison,” he said. “It’s time to talk rationally about how much punishment we can afford.”

A lighter hand by other cash-strapped states has turned a big corner, experts said. The overall number of inmates in state prisons declined last year for the first time since 1972.

Not in Kansas, however, where new admissions jumped more than 13 percent in the fiscal year ending in June.

From 2000 to 2009, Kansas’ prison population grew only 3.6 percent, the second-lowest growth rate in the nation. Only about a half-dozen states showed declines in those years. They acted early to reduce inmates, the Justice Policy Institute reported this year.

Roger Werholtz, Kansas secretary of corrections, explained what happened in that decade and possibly why the smooth ride ended for Kansas: In 2000, the largest source of new prisoners was parolees who committed new crimes or violated the conditions of their releases. Starting in about 2005, a bipartisan effort by lawmakers attacked that with programs for parolees, including education, substance abuse treatment and sex offender treatment. They also expanded home detention and started day-reporting centers and supportive housing for mentally ill and developmentally disabled offenders.

The yearly number of offenders returning to prison dropped from 55 percent in 2001 to 34 percent in 2008. Kansas got a reputation.

“Kansas has been the model; we were on top of it all,” said Rep. Pat Colloton, a Leawood Republican and chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice Oversight.

In the last two years, $8.2 million in cuts eliminated almost all those Kansas programs, but so far parolee-return rates have not gone up dramatically. Instead, most of the increase has come from new admissions.

Werholtz and other Sentencing Commission members offer suggestions on what happened:

•Since 2005, the Legislature approved 97 measures that increased penalties.

•County authorities have lost funding for alternative sentencing options, and judges may feel they have no option but prison.

•Although crime rates have held steady, better police work is catching more criminals.

Werholtz is requesting $8.2 million in next year’s budget to restore the parolee programs. Without that, he said, parolees will start going back to prison in higher numbers.

He also is requesting $6.6 million in the 2012 budget to house prisoners elsewhere. He also has options to add prison space, costing $5.4 million to $21.6 million.

Even the Mississippi solution could not be used in time to avoid growing shortfalls next year, he said. It would take too long to pass a controversial law, change protocols and hold parole hearings. It also would take too long to build prisons, even if the money were there.

Helen Pedigo, Kansas Sentencing Commission executive director, said expanding “good time” would be the fastest way.

Society needs to imprison people it is afraid of, not people it is mad at, she said.

The prison commissioner in Mississippi persuaded politicians of the same thing.

Colloton recently gave other Sentencing Commission members copies of a Governing magazine article on the Mississippi approach. The article credits Chris Epps, the state’s prison commissioner, with carving out success by working with an unlikely combination of Mississippi politicians and the American Civil Liberties Union.

As a team, Epps said Friday, they got passed a 2008 law to allow parole for nonviolent offenders after they served 25 percent of their time, instead of up to 85 percent.

They used a new risk-assessment tool to evaluate the nonviolent offenders case by case, and the Parole Board released about 60 percent of them, he said.

The net result in the first 14 months: About 3,100 inmates released an average of 13 months early, the closing of 13 prison units, a prison population decline of more than 2,000. The $348 million corrections budget in 2008 is down to $331 million now. That is $17 million saved instead of millions spent to build new prisons.

Experts report that 121 of the inmates released early returned to prison — only five of them for new crimes.

Margaret Winter, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, had sued the state over prison conditions. She said the outcome was a win for everyone.

“Release those who don’t need to be there and you have more room for those who do,” she said.

Epps said he would soon use expanded home detention or other options to again control the population, which has started increasing at the rate of 35 inmates a month.

He said he would rather see the $40.67 daily cost for each inmate day spent on education.

“Our inmates come in with sixth-grade reading levels, and 80 percent have alcohol or drug problems or both,” he said. “I’d rather stop it on the front end.”

Gorman, the Wyandotte County prosecutor, sees it differently if prisoners in Kansas get out early.

“We promised all this truth in sentencing and then we’re saying, ‘We’re not going to be so truthful,’ ” he said. “Then people have lied to the citizens.”

When a new Kansas governor and Legislature go to work in January, they will face some tough choices.

Five Ways to Get Your Child Reading

 5 easy tips to turn your child into a voracious reader. My "expert" status? I love to read, I am a mom, and my daughter reads at two grade levels above her age. I may not be that awesome but employing these five little tips may have your child reading in no time.

My daughter is visiting her dad this summer (something she's done since our divorce) and I always worry that she will lose what she's learned the past school year (and from me) while she's living it up with him. That's not to say I think he will "dumb her down" but...well maybe its my Type A personality scooting to the front during the summer months.
This summer I have no worries, though. Yesterday I spent a fabulous 48 minutes on the phone with my little angel and during that time was treated to a reading from her. I am always amazed by how smart my Maggie is and tend to credit all of her influences, not JUST me; however, I can take pride in how well she reads, her inflection and comprehension, and her ability to use and pronounce the big words as well as the small ones.

The tips I've used are almost a no brain-er for me but I thought I would share what I consider 5 key ways for turning your child into a lover of the written word. With a healthy appetite for reading I believe anyone can do anything they put their mind to.

Tip # 1:
Be a reader and share your love with your child-All kids like to copy what they see others doing and if your child sees you reading often, he or she will want to as well.

Tip # 2:
Read to your child daily-I've been reading to Maggie since she was but a blob in my belly-Spend 10-15-20 minutes or more a day sharing a story with your child.

Tip #3:
Encourage your child to help you read the story you've chosen-Once your child is old enough to start recognizing certain words, let him or her become an active part of telling the story.

Tip # 4:
Seek outside help (workbooks and/or tutoring)-Don't be afraid to admit that you wish your child was a better reader. If the situation reaches a point where you need outside tutoring, there are plenty of ways to get it. Check out your local libraries, bookstores, and research on-line for great tools to get them reading.

Tip # 5:
Take time to hear a story and interact with your child-Once your child can read on his or her own, encourage private time (for them to read on their own) and time with them to hear their story. Help with big words--pronouncing and defining, teach proper inflection (e.g., reading questions, character conversations, etc.), and make this a fun part of your day.

Again, the above worked for us and I am consistently and amazed by my smart girl. I believe in nature AND nurture when raising a child, and this is one area where I can honestly say I had SOMEthing to do with her reading success. Oh, and don't forget to praise your child when he or she blows you away with this awesome reading ability! Good luck with raising voracious readers!!!

Forex Trading Market – Learning Forex By Reading?

The Forex market is possibly the largest economic market in the entire world.
Based on the gift studies, more than 85 percent of the day-to-day business operations include trading of the top monetary units such as the US dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, British Pound and other major currencies.


“…This is a real 24-hour market, Forex trading starts everyday in Sydney, and goes around the globe, as the market day starts in every financial middle, primarily to Tokyo, London and New York. There is too much to learn about this greatly competitive, impulsive and delicate market that people may consider it a discouraging job. Therefore, people need to sort out books about forex trading to equip them to function well in the market.

Before you start any trading, you should first start familiarizing your Forex book. There are many Forex books available in most libraries and bookstore, which can be a fantastic help to you as you start with it. You can even find Forex e-books available in the internet…”

In an brilliant Forex book, there are no aggressive sales voices, no trickery, and invisible-free plot, but merely basic information. Forex book gives traders the skill to have an benefit on foreign currency exchange topics. Forex books will help investors to turn into brilliant forex traders.

In any Forex book, it is advisable that you do not devote in any market, the stock market, futures, mutual funds and others, until you devote in yourself first.

There are Forex books that provide traders not only with essential education but also with different trading strategies. These books are applicable for anyone to everyone, for the beginner and expert traders, assisting them gets the expertise, information and skills to effectively trade forex market.

Some of most widespread and greatly useful means to buy forex books are by joining seminars in which there are sample books that are being offered, and subscription services.(visit www.sureshotbooks.com) Of course, this is every depending upon the type of book you want, your inclination, ease of use and budget limitation. There is always something to fit nearly everybody.

Studying forex analysis via forex trading book will allow skilled traders and starters to deal with complete assurance and confidence. You can manage your possess winning forex trading trade part time or full time from home and produce cash flow in growing or declining markets. You can absolutely receive a fantastic earning on the Internet by educating yourself with the forex trading books.

“…The forex books brings a complete information of everyday transactions from the interactions of forex traders every over the world, brokerage firms, controllers and other parties concerned in these business that are not accessible anywhere else. The book will offer you headings and links to medium narratives, and notes, which provide you a simple to check and useful set-up, carried to you each day using the Internet.

But, the difficult thing about this is that most forex books on the topic includes dozens of practical study pointers or talks about macroeconomics. In the Forex book, it is expected that there is many filling that is not sufficiently focused on what a trader needs to achieve a profitable trade.  But, you do not have to worry that much in this case, since forex books can also be of fantastic use to you most especially when you are just a starter in the market…”.