my afternoon with inmates

Supply House Rick

Peace Out

hot_rod

yesterday

Ellen and I traveled to a medium security facility in Oklahoma to present a seminar. About 60 inmates attended a basic business seminar. Seems Oklahoma has a very progressive program to train and prepare inmates for jobs when released.

Currently there are 2.03 million behind bars in the US.

They were polite and full of questions. Some great humor
One shared some inventions for me to take "out" He has never seen or held a cell phone, been locked up for over 20 years. Another fellow I met will be in for 30 years.

A few are months from parole and have their business plans all worked.

It was quite an eye opening experience.

hot rod

DanHolohan

Good for you!

I've been corrosponding with Kevin Bathjer, who is doing time in Pennsylvania. Kevin is a plumber who was driving drunk and got the maximum. He wrote me last year and asked if I could get him Plumbing & Mechanical magazine, which he missed very much. I now send him my copy each month after I read it. He's also asked for books on lots of technical topics and I've sent those as well. He wants to make sure he's up to speed when he gets out later this year and I admire that. He's making good use of his time and he writes a good letter.

ALH_4

Education in Prison

If people like Bob and Ellen don't offer training to inmates, what chance do they have of staying out once they leave? I think this sort of thing is highly commendable.

No doubt, many are in prison because they saw few options in their lives other than crime, while others are there because they simply made bad choices or got caught up with illegal drugs.

When one starts adding up the direct and indirect costs of keeping this many people in prison, any way to keep them out once they leave is almost always beneficial to our society as well as our economy.

Yes, punishment is one of the primary reasons for sending people to prison, but rehabilitation cannot be forgotten for most prisoners. I leave the determination of which prisoners are good candidates for rehabilitation to those in charge. What else can we do?

It might not hurt to spread some of this information in high schools too. Public schools are sorely lacking, in my opinion. Maybe we could avoid sending some of them to prison in the first place.

Rich L.

Info to High Schoolers

"It might not hurt to spread some of this information in high schools too. Public schools are sorely lacking, in my opinion. Maybe we could avoid sending some of them to prison in the first place."

Our local union, UA Local 125, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has a training trailer that they take around to local high school job fairs. This school year they have so far been to approx 10 schools with more on the schedule as the school year end draws near. We are met with some very positive reactions by kids that had never considered a field like this before.

Kudos to all that are helping get the message out that this is a great career to be involved in.

seabee570

Inmates

I was the chief engineer at a large prison in maryland. We had every trade shop staffed maintenance people and a large contingent of inmates.The inmates had to have attended classes,and it took many years for them to make it to the maintenance shops.Without the inmate labor,costs to maintain the prison would have risen dramatically.The staff pitched in and had a christmas party every year,which they appreciated. We even had a few go and take the stationary engineers test to obtain a license.

Eric Johnson

Magazines in Prison

I edit a trade magazine for loggers and sawmillers, and a surprising number (maybe a couple dozen) of our 11,000 or so subscribers are currently incarcerated. I'm not sure what that says about our industry, if anything, but it is encouraging to see inmates thinking about the future.

And kudos to hot rod and his wife for making the effort to help out those who really need it. I think we're warehousing way too many people (in many cases for victimless crimes), and in the process, denying them the opportunities they will need to succeed once released.