Gavilan College is taking instruction out of the classroom and
delivering it to the jail cell.
Gavilan College is taking instruction out of the classroom and delivering it to the jail cell.
The San Benito County Jail has developed a partnership with Gavilan to bring instructors into the jail to teach GED, English and life skills courses to the inmates.
Gavilan is collaborating with the jail to ready prisoners for the transition into the community upon their release.
“When they leave the jail, it will be a seamless transition back into the community,” said Astevia Lopez-Bushnell, inmate services program manager at the jail. With the same faces turning up in jails time and time again, programs like these are necessary to combat recidivism rates, she said.
When inmates are released from the jail as parolees, they are given $200 and a bus ticket, Lieutenant Ed Escamilla said. “That’s not enough. We need to move to the next level.” The partnership with Gavilan is a step in the right direction, he said.
Larry Sweeney, 49, an ordained minister of 15 years, teaches noncredit creative writing courses at Gavilan. Through the college, he also teaches at the jail, instructing inmates in a variety of subjects as they work toward earning their GED.
Gavilan has provided three instructors who teach classes six days a week to about 75 of the 109 prisoners currently housed at the jail.
He brought pastries to his seven students for their Wednesday morning GED class.
“They stay up all night talking about their lives and playing dominoes,” Sweeney said. “It takes coffee and pastries to get them up and out of bed sometimes.”
A large portion of the three-hour class was devoted to a lesson in basic algebra. Delivering the lesson in English and improvised Spanish, with the help of several students who offered help translating, Sweeney reviewed the material necessary to pass the test that is required of the inmates if they want to earn their GED. The class was relaxed and Sweeney and his students exchanged jokes and bantered back and forth during the lesson.
Although Guy Scarlett, 46, already has his high school diploma and attended college at California State University, Chico, he attends the classes because they “keep me on my toes,” he said. “Lieutenant Escamilla and the jail staff deserve credit for allowing Gavilan College to offer the inmates the opportunity to take the GED, life skills and ESL classes. It gives them new skills which could potentially help them in not returning to jail. The correctional officers estimate the return rate at 80 to 90 percent.”
Tony Gabriel, 27, is another inmate who takes advantage of the free, noncredit courses offered at the jail. He, too, has his high school diploma from San Benito High School but shows up to the GED courses “just to get back into education,” he said.
He plans to enroll at Gavilan upon his release in two weeks. “I need to get my life back on track,” he said.
Classes like these “help inmates choose a path that moves away from the American nightmare and toward the American dream,” Sweeney said. Because of the progressive leadership at the jail, the inmates will soon have limited access to the Internet that will allow them to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Indiana.
“Many inmates are released that have no high school diploma, no job skills, and face intense employer suspicion. This creates a viscous circle in which more prisons are needed partly due to lack of real rehabilitation provided,” Sweeney said. “In a nation that warehouses its poor in prisons, giving them the opportunity to break that cycle is elementary. This class is a small beginning.”
