Education, Not Incarceration

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY, 2015.

 

            “Every dollar spent on prison education saves five dollars in corrections expenditures.” That was the conclusion drawn in a 2014 released meta-analysis study conducted by the Rand Corporation. Sentencing a person to prison does more to undermine one’s employability than any other factor. Is it any wonder 65% of released offenders re-offend within 3 years. Inmates are twice as likely to lack a high school education as the general population.

            In the words of Vivian D. Nixon, Executive director of College and Community fellowship in New York,

            “Every felony conviction … quite literally results in a life sentence.”

            Education – and only education breaks the cycle of repeat offenses. Earn a bachelor’s degree in prison and the recidivism rate drops to 5.6%. Earn a master’s and the rate is less than 1%. No less a conservative spokesman than former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the following:

            “Prisoners should be provided free education in order to reduce crime and recidivism.”

            And yet education – particularly higher-educated – is the red-headed stepchild of the prison system. At this facility every man in our college program pays his own way – tuition – the same rate charged to students on the street. No other inmates in Virginia pay for the “privilege” of improving their chances for success on the street. Not even one state dollar is invested in the college program here, yet millions annually go into “re-entry” programs with no provable record of success. The commonwealth spent millions on a “software” package – “Compass,” a 120 plus question/survey to determine an offenders risk of re-offending. Meanwhile a nationally recognized program for offenders our “Campus within Walls” program is treated with both benign neglect and outright contempt by those in charge here.

            The “dedicated housing unit,” a dorm specifically mandated for use by college participants, is the fullest building on the compound. While bed space sits empty in every other building here, those in charge continue to use beds in this building as a dumping zone. Recent surveys of our students indicated the noise and distractions from the non-college residents are the single greatest impediment to success in class.

            Makes you wonder, or maybe it doesn’t. Education, a college education, is the ticket out. What does that tell you about the goals of those in charge?

            It is time for the Department of Corrections to get behind the one program that will reduce recidivism and that will give these men a fighting chance of success after release.

 

Sentences: Beginning and Ending

 THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 2014.

 

            This week the last two men still here from our original Campus within Walls cohorts (group #2 who began in December of 2011) leave for home. “Mopey Joe” and “Chase” are leaving this place, this life (if you call living like this “life”) after 14 and 19 years respectively. I will miss both these men.

            “Mopey Joe.” I gave Will that name shortly after I met him in 2011. He was a “grumbler,” who reminded me of the “Winnie the Pooh” character, “Eeyore.” But, he was a decent, quiet guy who committed an armed robbery shortly before his 19^th birthday (coincidentally, the “victim” was not a choir boy himself – he too was on the police “radar.” To avoid his own legal problems, he fingered “Mopey Joe.”). “Mopey Joe” did hard time at some not so nice high level facilities.

            Chase is approaching his fiftieth birthday. As a young man in Baltimore, he was not the man he is today. He found himself on the wrong side of the law more often than he may even care to admit, but it was always “2 years here, 2 years there.” Then, in Northern Virginia, he crossed a line – a violent robbery and lock up for the next 19 years. When I first met him he walked up to me and told me, “I’m not sure I can do this college program. I never even turned on a computer.” I watched Chase learn to type; I watched him learn to write well; I watched Chase succeed… and complete our program.

            Both men leave before Christmas. And I watch as they prepare for life after this place, after this experience, and I hope and pray they do well. Prison – contrary to what politicians and judges say when they seek to justify billions in spending and millions of lives wasted – is not transformative. No one ever leaves prison better because of prison. No, you leave here transformed in spite of the filth, and insanity, and violence. Character – real character – comes out in the worst circumstances. Both of these men are decent, caring, and compassionate. That doesn’t ignore the fact that they committed wrongs which led to their incarceration. It should make you ask, did they deserve so much time?

            Both men will see their sentences end next week. Both men will begin lives anew and try to forget the worst and maybe remember those few moments of joy and friendship that somehow even arise in places like this.

            Sentences begin. For Virginia’s ex-Governor, Robert McDonnell, he sits on the cusp of his sentencing. Shortly after the new year begins he will enter the main courtroom in the Federal Court building in downtown Richmond. There, the presiding U.S. District Court Judge will hand down his sentence and McDonnell will, undoubtedly be going to prison. The U.S. Probation Office filed its “pre-sentencing” report the other day and recommended “at least ten years.” McDonnell is in purgatory right now. His old life is over. He may be going through the motions, acting as if all is as it was, but it isn’t. He knows nothing about what is coming. Until you hear that door slam shut, until you are processed in, you don’t know anything about it.

            The ex-Governor will stand there and hear the sentence handed down and he will feel more alone, more lost than ever before. And, he will wonder if he can survive it all. Can he survive prison, and loss of reputation, and loss of wealth and privilege? That is the beginning; it feels so much like the end – the end of dreams, and lifestyle, and relationships – but it is the beginning.

            Then there is “fighting Joe” Morrissey, member of the Virginia House of Delegates, lawyer – once disgraced, then restored – who accepted an “Alford” plea (Alford plea says “I’m not admitting guilt, but I know you have enough to convict me.) On 1 count of misdemeanor “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” Morrissey was given a 6 month sentence; he’ll serve 90 days at the Henrico Jail, my “home” for a year.

            The Morrissey case points out the problems inherent in the criminal justice system. A family dispute – estranged parents – and the father notifies authorities that Morrissey is engaged in an “improper sexual relationship with his underage daughter (question: can there ever be a “proper” sexual relationship with someone underage?) Allegations of nude pictures on his cellphone (“child pornography”), underage drinking, and more come out in the press. Morrissey denies it all and vows to put up a fight.

            Both the girl (the alleged “victim”) and her mother claim nothing inappropriate occurred. The press eats it all up. After all, love him or hate him, Jim Morrissey brings ratings. Then, at the courthouse, just moments from beginning trial, the parties announced the plea. And Morrissey? He showed up at the Henrico Jail and smiling – genuinely smiling – he began his 90 day sentence.

            I like Joe Morrissey, always have. He thumbs his nose at the “civil,” the elite who rely on their status to maintain their comfortable lives. Morrissey regularly spoke out for the disenfranchised, the poor, the poorly educated, those behind bars. But, I can’t help and think that by accepting this plea he is admitting he crossed a line, a line no reasonable adult can justify.

            Morrissey will do his 90 days. His sentence is short but the repercussions to his career, his reputation, may last the remainder of his life. That is the thing with most sentences: they have beginning dates and end dates but the results may go with you.

            Two sentences end, two sentences begin and for each man their lives go forward.

 

 

School's in Session 2

Spring semester began the other day and we’re one week back into college. It’s funny really, how close we came to losing the whole program. And yet, out of the worst came a new feeling of excitement. Guys are generally excited about getting back in classes. There’s a new air in “4A,” our college-only dorm (or soon to be).

            There’s still fallout from December’s purge. Computers won’t return to the building until February. Another aide was let go. It’s simple really; you were either with the program or against it. If you were against it, you’re out. Four guys who ran their mouths and cut corners were axed. It was like the scene in “Godfather I” when the family convinces a young Michael Corleone to kill his father’s attacker. “It’ll lead to a bloodletting, but that’s good. You need one every five years or so,” Michael was told by one his father’s capos. And so it is in here.

            Change – even when traumatic – can be good. At MSRs all over the Commonwealth (medium security re-entry facilities) representatives of the community college are meeting with vets to get students for our GI Bill “IT” program. So far, over 50 such men have filed for their DD 214 (the Department of Defense form showing the vet had an honorable discharge and is GI Bill eligible). The first thirty approved will move here in late February; the remainder will be waiting listed until later this year.

            Think college doesn’t matter to guys in here? One of our grads recently won an award from Apple and the college he’s attending for designing a new app. In the press release it said he learned IT development in the “Campus within Walls” prison education program sponsored by SVCC.

            School’s back and it’s busy, and it’s challenging, and it’s making a difference. If only the rest of prison time was so successful.

 

The Visit

Last Monday our “Campus within Walls” hosted the Chief Deputy of the Virginia Secretary of Education.  We’d expected the Secretary to be here.  “She had a commitment arise from the budget conference” we were told.  And our initial reaction was one of disappointment.  We thought it was just another example of our program, and in particular the work the instructors and aides do, just getting lip service from Richmond.  Especially for the aides, this is a thankless job.  We’re paid 45 cents per hour and many of us are devoting 60, 70 and sometimes 80 hours each week helping guys with their assignments.  Yet, we are only allowed credit for 50 hours each week.  Nothing we do gets us closer to release.  Virginia doesn’t provide extraordinary good time, even when you’re helping make possible the Governor’s vision for successful re-entry.

So, our initial reaction to the visit was muted.  We were, we thought, the “red-headed” step child again.  But then the Deputy Director engaged us and, to our pleasant surprise, things were better than we’d hoped.

The Deputy Director was a school principal before becoming the second in command at the Department of Education.  He spoke at length with the aides as he sat in our Excel class.  He talked candidly with our instructor.  He asked well reasoned questions and was genuinely impressed by the efforts of the men and the instructors.  “I’ve never been inside a prison before”, he told us on the way over to tour our building.  “I never imagined it would be like this.”

The building tour:  the warden, the assistant warden, the president of the Community College and our principal led our Richmond VIPs over to our “dorm”.  Our IT instructor, Ms. T – the most dedicated faculty member I know to this program – asked me to escort her over to see the building.  “I’ve always wondered how you guys do it, the conditions you live under”, she told me as we walked over.  Then she slowed and asked, “Will it make me cry?”  I laughed.  “No more than it makes me cry every day.”  And they all came in and saw the 96 bunks and gray paint and Ms. T leaned over to me and said, “I’ll never forget that first view when I walked in.”

And there were pictures.  All of us photographed by the Education Department’s photographer with the warden, the assistant warden, our teacher, our principal; all of us aides standing with the Deputy Director in front of our building, in front of our sign, “Campus Within Walls…A Learning Community”.

“I’ll be back”, the Deputy Director told us.  “And I’ll bring the Secretary.”  And our principal was thrilled.  She told me the next day that visit will mean more for our program, for our future, than we can imagine.  “The Governor will hear what we’re doing.  Things will change.  Wait and see Larry.”

I hope she is right.  I hope all this matters.  I hope the visit is the start of a new way for the Governor and politicians to view what’s going on in here and not just another pass through photo op.  Only time will tell.  And the aides all have plenty of that …time.

The Sign

Inside this facility – correctional center, re-entry center, prison; the word changes almost weekly with the program emphasis shifting – every building looks the same.  There are six double-sided rectangular “dormitory” buildings and, with the exception of the number stenciled dead center, you can’t tell one from the other.

That’s the way prison is.  It’s about uniformity.  Everyone dresses alike – “blues”, shirts and jeans – and everyone eventually looks alike.  Whether intended or not, prison dehumanizes you.  Your seven digit “state number” matters more than anything.  It’s ironic, isn’t it?  To stop guys from re-offending, recommitting, you have to understand their individual stories.  Instead, they’re all lumped together.  And the failure rate rolls on.

Everything looks the same.  Everything feels the same until…last Thursday.  Thursday morning a huge sign went up on the front of our building.  In burgundy letters on a pure white background, a sign, the logo of the sponsoring Virginia Community College prominently displayed in the upper left corner.  It read:

Southside Virginia Community College

Campus within Walls

Our college dorm had an identity.

The Virginia Secretary of Education is visiting our college program Monday afternoon.  She wants to see what’s going on at Lunenburg.  That’s the reaction you get from government when something actually works.  See, Virginia has contributed exactly $0 to this program.  The idea for this campus came from Southside’s President who, coincidentally, is married to our principal.  These two people have devoted their lives to educating prisoners.  And Dr. and Mrs. C, they understood a college education destroys recidivism.

Dr. C sold this idea to skeptics at DOC and in the Governor’s office.  The state provided no money, no materials, nothing.  In fact, everyday at least one officer would push back against the college idea.  I still remember the day CO Newbill, sitting in the building, heard me conduct an English review class.  He called me over, “You’re wasting your time”, he said.  “These scumbags will be back.”  Simply put, that pissed me off.

And that’s the way things went until the Community College won a Bellwether Award about two months ago.  The Bellwether is the most prestigious award granted community colleges for excellence and innovation in their programs.  Southside won a Bellwether for the “Campus within Walls” initiative.  And then, everyone wanted to jump on board.

Governor McDonnell’s office put out a press release touting the Bellwether and then conveniently tied the program into his re-entry initiative.  The community college has been swamped by community colleges in other states asking “How do we start the same program?”  And Monday, Virginia’s Secretary of Education is coming.  She’s scheduled to participate in the computer class I assist.  

After that, there will be pictures in front of the sign:  The Secretary of Education, Dr. and Mrs. C, and the college aides.  Thursday, we had photos taken of us in front of the sign with the Warden, Assistant Warden and unit manager.  Everyone, it seems, wants in on the sign.

Thursday night as I was falling asleep I was trying to figure out what it all meant.  This week marked another birthday I missed of my older son.  I haven’t heard from either of my sons in almost 3 ½ years.  And my ex?  She’s moved on to a new life.  Friends have fallen by the wayside.  In truth, without the hectic schedule of this college program, I think the loneliness and emptiness would overwhelm me.

“What does it mean, God?”  And then I remember Lunenburg wasn’t even on my list of prisons when I was at the receiving unit.  I wasn’t supposed to come here.  Yet, I did.  And two days after my arrival, I was hired as an academic aide in the school.  Thirty days later, I was given permission to start a creative writing class.  Five months later Mrs. C called me in, told me about the grant and asked me to head up the academic aides.

Was it a sign?  Albert Einstein said, “God uses coincidences to remain anonymous.”  Coincidences are nothing more than signs.  And signs matter, sometimes more than we realize. 

In Black and White

As opposed to most white Americans, I live in an integrated world.  Our “learning community” – the “Campus within Walls” is just over 50% white and just under 50% black.  Those percentages are an anomaly in prison where almost 70% of the inmates are African Americans.  One of the eye opening parts of my prison experience has been coming face to face with my preconceptions, my prejudices, about race. I’ve written about it before.  I live it every day.  I’ve learned quite a bit in four years.  First, that for the vast majority of whites, we haven’t a clue what it means to be black in America.  Second, that the vast majority of Black Americans don’t hate us should come as a pleasant surprise.  And third, that race continues to define and damage this country and will do so until we come to grips with it.

I write this as race again rears its ugly head with the news of the shooting of a 17 year-old black teenager by the name of Trayvon Martin (in Sanford, Florida).  His death was senseless.  That the shooter remains free should concern every parent.  When President Obama – a man I don’t often agree with – said “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin”, he spoke from the heart.  Unfortunately, in America, race matters.  Whether “driving while black” or walking back from a convenient market with skittles and an ice tea “while black” it is tough, sometimes deadly to be black in America.

A few weeks ago during a visit, a relative leaned in and whispered to me “Obama hates white people”.  How do you know that?  I asked, realizing the President’s own mother is white.  “It was on the internet”, came the reply.

And it made me think of my own upbringing.  I grew up in an upper-middle income family in upstate New York who had zero black neighbors or friends.  My high school had one black student.  Our church, a 400 member Presbyterian congregation had one black couple.  I still remember cringing as a middle-schooler in the late ’60’s when my mom remarked once that Shirley “is a credit to her race.”  I wonder what that makes me, now a member of the tribe of felons?

My family moved to Raleigh in the 80’s when I was in law school.  They have no black neighbors, no black friends, no black church families.  They have never voted for a black candidate.  The only contact they have with Black America is when they go to the mall.  And if my mom sees young black men she instinctively clutches her purse and car keys. 

And I wonder, thinking about all that, why no young black man in prison has ever suggested to me “your family hates black people”.  White America, I am convinced, doesn’t understand what it means to be black in this country.

Here are some facts to ponder.  Roughly three out of four black children are born out of wedlock.  60% of all black males between 17 and 25 have a criminal record.  80% of black students don’t go beyond high school.  Four in ten don’t even graduate high school.  The dropout rate, the incarceration rate, the mortality rate, the poverty rate for black Americans is dramatically worse than for the white community. 

Those are just facts.  That doesn’t quantify the number of times blacks are stopped by the police for random pat downs, or the fact that while drug use is proportional in both the black and white communities, a young black caught with drugs will almost always end up in prison.  And the white?  Rehab and probation.

America is not a color-blind society, and it’s a shame, a national shame.  Trayvon Martins lies dead for one simple reason; he was a black teenager walking at night.  I hate saying that, but the truth sometimes isn’t pretty.

Prison is an amalgam of gang bangers, white supremacists, and the rest of us.  I thought when I was first locked up how wasteful and inane the entire gang culture was.  Then, I looked myself in the mirror.  Gangs are a reflection of the sick, pervasive race issues this nation still suffers from.  And it will get worse.  The N.O.I. – Nation of Islam, with their call for race separation and their revisionist history and illogical conclusions passing as “knowledge” grows by leaps and bounds each week behind these walls.  I hear the young black guys discussing their “elements of wisdom” and my heart breaks.  They are being fed falsehood upon falsehood.

Dr. King understood the dangers that lurked for America if we didn’t grasp our race problem.  We are not to judge “by the color of our skin”, but “by the content of our character”.  Those of us who believe in the Gospel of Jesus know well that “in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, free nor slave”.

Trayvon Martin’s tragic death can be a chance for America to be something different, a nation not separated or defined by color.  Surely any parent can feel the pain his family must feel.  And that is as plain as black and white.

Graduation Day

Yesterday forty-one men, convicted felons, failures, losers, refuse; graduated Southside Virginia Community College.  In a ceremony conducted by the college with four members of the House of Delegates present, a dozen senior administrators from DOC, the Assistant Director of the State Council of Higher Education, the head of the Department of Correctional Education and 150 to 200 family members and friends, these forty-one men were conferred degrees and program certificates.  I have been incarcerated over three and one-half years.  Yesterday was the first day I felt joy, true joy, as I contemplated my experience in prison.  It was a day I felt truly blessed and loved by God who has opened my eyes to so much.  It was an extraordinary day.

The day before graduation I was in an IT class with a wonderful professor.  Class had concluded and I was busy packing and recharging the students’ laptops and preparing the room for that evening’s American History class.  The instructor – a woman I have worked with for over a year – was packing up her satchel.  We were talking about her son – a senior at Virginia Tech – and the students, gauging how they were doing.

Ms. T looked at me and spoke.  “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I remember when you were arrested, how do you remain so upbeat?” She asked, not in an accusatory or morbidly fascinating way, but in a caring way.  And I told her briefly about the struggles in jail, receiving, the pain and regret of my divorce.  But, for some reason - and I’m not even sure why – I said “I think God’s been trying to tell me something.”

Ms. T’s smile broadened.  “Oh Larry.  Do you know why I love teaching here?  My faith tells me I’ve sinned.  I’m no better than any of these men in here.  I have to be merciful.  We’re all God’s children.  He’s blessed me with this teaching opportunity.”

Graduation Day.  Usually mornings in the building are quiet and slow.  There’s a small morning “crew” - Craig, Saleem, DC, Mike and me – who are up around 4:00 and maneuver through the showers, iron shirts, and the like all before 6:00.  But, this day was different.  By 5:30 the building was alive, every shower, every sink in use.  Guys were six deep for the iron.  Everyone wanted to look their best.

And there was some disconcert in the building.  The graduation, originally scheduled for December, had been moved to January to accommodate the Governor’s schedule.  The Governor, who regularly talks of offender re-entry as a cornerstone of his administration, suddenly “remembered” the General Assembly was in session.  He was too busy with the legislation to drive out.  And, if the Governor was too busy, so were his Director of Public Safety and his Director of Corrections.  Governor McDonnell, it seemed, could take time out of his schedule to endorse Mitt Romney for Republican candidate for President.  He couldn’t spare a few moments for the incarcerated.

At 8:30, the call came across the intercom, “college graduation participants head to program building”.  The 4A and 4B doors popped and off we went; forty or so men heading down the boulevard and around to the visitation room and gym.  The soon to be graduates headed to the library to dress in their caps and gowns and hoods.  Craig, DC and I headed to the VI room to help Ms. C, our principal, and the woman who along with her husband, Dr. C – President of Southside Community College – had dreamt of this program and this day and by their determination secured the grant and the blessings of the powers that be to make the college dream a reality. 

The three of us got to VI expecting the hassle, the pat down, the sneers of the shift officers assigned to clear us.  That wasn’t what we got.  The dayshift captain was there.  Normally a stern, abrupt officer, he was relaxed.  “Let’s get these fellows in”, he said and his officers gave a light pat down.

We helped assemble our grads in the VI room as dozens of family members and friends of the grads walked passed heading to the gym for seats.  I saw Big S’s brother step through the door with his daughter who gave a big wave to her daddy in his cap and gown.  Faculty from the college joined us and began putting their academic regalia on.  Photos of the class were taken.  And, promptly at 10:00, the processional began.

The sound system began the pre-recorded strains of the theme from “Chariots of Fire”.  I love the movie and the music.  For those not familiar with it, “Chariots of Fire” was an Academy Award winning movie based on the life and friendship of two of England’s greatest runners before the First World War.  One, Eric Liddell, was the son of Protestant Missionaries.  He was a beautiful gifted runner who moved with grace and fluidity.  Asked by a reporter to explain his running ability Liddell simply said “God smiles when I run.”  I think of those five simple words often, how when we do the seemingly effortless things, when we are both relaxed and focused, God smiles, knowing we sense the gift He’s given.

And so it was with our graduation.  On a morning which began with wind and rain, the sky cleared, the sun shone, the graduates proceeded forward and I felt God indeed smiled.  The ceremony was brief:  one hour.  DOC’s Regional Director, an early forties soft spoken black man, told the students Harold Clarke – the Department Director – believes in education for prisoners and, more importantly, believes in second chances.  And then came the conferring of degrees and certificates.  Each man stepped forward and received his diploma.  The academic aides were then called forward individually to receive recognition.  A photographer snapping photos, family members applauding, it was a real graduation; for those moments there was no “campus behind walls”. 

At the conclusion of the ceremony Dr. C rose for a final few words.  In a heartfelt gesture, he thanked the men for making his dream come true.  He reminded them they were unique, “the only program of its kind in America”.  And then he added, “And on Monday we travel to accept the prestigious Bell Award for outstanding innovative program in a community college.”

Recessional and then a meal.  The food?  It was the best meal I’ve had since August 18, 2008.  Provided by the college – and prepared and served by the men working in the prison kitchen – it was simply delicious.  Thick slabs of roast beef, real chicken breast, mashed potatoes, green beans, buttered rolls and salad – yes, fresh greens, cherry tomatoes – with homemade peppercorn ranch; heaping bowls of fresh fruit:  three kinds of grapes, cherries, pineapple, apples, honeydew, cantaloupe.  Plates were piled full and everywhere faculty members ate with the men and their families.

And something altogether unprison-like occurred.  There was no “count”.  The officers merely counted ID cards and then grabbed plates and ate with us.  For those few hours there were no “us” and “them”. There was only “we”.  “We” celebrated the achievements.  “We” felt part of something special.  “We” felt blessed.

A number of the grads asked me to get in pictures with them.  I was introduced to parents and wives and kids and it was always the same.  “This is the man I told you about.  He helped me get through the classes.  I couldn’t have done it without him.”  I felt overjoyed.  I felt blessed to be a part of this experience.  And, I felt God smile.

Later, surveying the room the Regional Director and one of the members of the House of Delegates waved me over.  “Thank you for all your efforts”, the Director told me.  In a polite fashion, I told him the efforts we – the offenders – needed to see from Richmond.  “If you really believe in re-entry, you’ll create incentives – more good time earning – for guys like these who are busting it every day to turn their lives around.  We need early release.”

Surprisingly, the Director agreed with me.  “We do need it Larry.  But this man is who you have to convince.”  The Delegate looked at me then with a smirk said, “And even in this tough economy, the crime rate has dropped.”  “In my humble opinion, and you know the studies as well as I do, sir, your policies have nothing to do with the crime rate.  It’s time Sir that you and the other delegates speak honestly about the prison system”, I responded.

We continued to speak for another fifteen minutes.  “You gave me some things to think about”, the delegate said as we shook hands and parted company.

Later in the afternoon I returned to the building.  I lay on my bunk, and drifted off to sleep.  I dreamt of a time years ago when my family was at Hilton Head.  It was a glorious summer day and we were boating on the Westside of the island.  My wife and sons smiling, sitting back enjoying the warm breezes.  We approached the end of the island and I could see where the Inland Waterway merged with the Atlantic.  And the sun gleamed on the Atlantic and the water appeared to go on forever.  And I looked at the water and felt free, at peace and blessed.

I woke from my dream with my heart full.  I was free.  I was at peace.  I was blessed.

Teaching Assistants

January 17, 2012

Campus Within Walls Receives Bellwether Award

Governor McDonnell Congratulates Southside Virginia Community College on Receiving Bellwether Award
– SsVCC received the award for its Campus Within Walls prisoner re-entry program –

RICHMOND - Governor Bob McDonnell announced today that an innovative program begun under his prisoner re-entry initiative has been awarded a national Bellwether Award finalist trophy in the category of Planning, Governance and Finance at the Futures Assembly in Orlando, Florida. The program, called Campus Within Walls, is spearheaded by Southside Virginia Community College (SsVCC) and involves partnerships with the Virginia Department of Corrections, the Sunshine Lady Foundation and Goodwill Industries. Because of these collaborations and a Second Chance Grant from the Department of Justice, the program has operated without cost to Virginia taxpayers.

The Bellwether Awards annually recognize outstanding and innovative programs and practices that are successfully leading community colleges into the future. The award selection process involved a critical review by a panel of national judges of hundreds of nominations from all over the country. Only 10 programs were selected and invited to the Bellwether Futures Assembly in the Planning, Governance and Finance category.

Speaking about the Campus Within Walls program at SsVCC, Governor McDonnell commented, "I want to congratulate Southside Virginia Community College, under the leadership of Dr. John Cavan, on receiving such a prestigious award for a very important program which provides offenders in our prison system with hope for a productive future. Campus Within Walls is a component of our comprehensive prisoner re-entry program. As I have long said, those who commit a crime must first repay their debt to society and take responsibility for their actions. However, it is our job to work with these offenders to prepare them for release from prison. The reality is that the vast majority of the people that we send to prison eventually get out. Therefore, in the interest of public safety and good government, prisoner re-entry strategies must be put in place. This is the responsible and cost-effective approach to 21^st century corrections. We do not want individuals released from our institutions to re-offend. In an effort to further reduce recidivism in the Commonwealth, we have implemented a comprehensive re-entry initiative designed to successfully prepare those who have served their time to go back into their communities as productive members of society. Campus Within Walls works with Virginia inmates to help them receive an education credential so that they have the tools and skills they need to support themselves and get a job once they are released. This valuable program has been successfully implemented at SsVCC. Recently, 40 inmates who participated in the program at Lunenburg Correctional Center graduated. These individuals have made a significant step toward preparing to become successful members of their community upon release from prison. The Department of Corrections, with assistance from its many partners, has implemented a number of innovative re-entry programs throughout our correctional system and Campus Within Walls is an excellent example of what can be done to assist offenders prepare for their return to their neighborhoods."

Dr. John Cavan, Southside Virginia Community College President, commented, "This is just another example of Southside Virginia Community College truly living the mission of a democracy's college. The graduation of students from the Campus Within Walls and receiving the Bellwether Award symbolizes the great commitment of Governor McDonnell in creating a winning team of SsVCC, Department of Correctional Education and the Department of Corrections to forward the governor's re-entry initiative."

Campus Within Walls is an intensive inmate education program with unique features such as the housing of inmate participants together in the prison to create a "learning community," the infusion of modern technology, the use of inmate tutors, and a well defined curriculum designed to allow inmates to attain an educational credential while incarcerated. The program increases safety within the prisons by keeping inmates occupied with positive pursuits. The program also is expected to produce long-term public safety benefits. Research conducted nationally and within the Commonwealth demonstrates that certificate and degree attainment reduces recidivism and thereby increases public safety. Participants are more likely to have the skills and discipline to obtain and keep jobs, become law abiding taxpayers and support themselves and their families.

Southside Virginia Community College (SsVCC), in cooperation with the Department of Corrections (DOC), the Department of Correctional Education (DCE), and Goodwill Industries Network (Lunenburg only) has created this unique prison education program within its service region. On Friday, Jan. 27, SsVCC awarded an Associate Degree of Arts and Science, General Education Certificates, IST Certification, Comp TIA A+ Certification, and Masonry Certification to more than 40 other participants.