Setting Structure, Standards for Men Returning from Prison

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By Philadelphia Inquirer

Published: 08/06/2003

Manny Arroyo keeps a prison cell on his desk.
He lifts the 6-inch wooden box and points out the details: a half-inch toilet, a thumbnail-size radiator, a postage-stamp girlie calender on the wall.
The unusual miniature was the first thing Arroyo unpacked last month when he arrived at his new job as director of Coleman Hall, a 300-bed community corrections center and halfway house in the Juniata Park section of Philadelphia. The perfect replica of a Graterford Prison cell is a handmade gift from an inmate who knew Arroyo when he worked in the Montgomery County facility.
'I bring it as a reminder of how much talent there is inside the walls,' Arroyo said. Talent, individuality, and lots of untapped potential: That is what Arroyo sees when he looks at the paroled prison inmates who pass through Coleman Hall on their way back into society.
'They're just people,' Arroyo said - people who have made big mistakes and bad choices, and who now need to learn a better way to live. 'Any day you choose in your life can be the day you turn your life around,' he said.
It's an attitude that Arroyo, 48, carried through 25 years in the state's correctional system, most recently as deputy superintendent for programs and services at Graterford. The Coleman Center is a private facility that contracts with the state.
Coworkers, associates, even inmates describe Arroyo - who wears a tie but never seems uptight - as progressive, caring, and committed to helping people grow.
'He knows the needs of the men who are locked up,' said Lori Pompa, a Temple University instructor who holds regular discussion forums inside Graterford. 'And he does everything he can within the parameters of the system in which he works to respond to those needs.'
At Graterford, that meant promoting new programs for inmates, to prepare them for the day they would be released.
'He really cares about the rehabilitation of the men,' said Ray Jones, cofounder of Men United for a Better Philadelphia, who worked with Arroyo for several months to help inmates organize an anticrime conference inside the prison. 'He knows that most of the gentlemen at Graterford are going home. So how do you prepare them to be better people so that they can be part of a success story and not just another disappointment?'
Malik Aziz, a former Graterford inmate who served time in the 1980s on drug-related offenses and now works with the mayor's office to improve safety in Philadelphia schools, said Arroyo's background helps him answer that question.
'Manny comes from the neighborhood,' Aziz said. 'He sees the beginning of the ills that lead [people] into incarceration. He understands some of the pit stops.'
That doesn't mean the work isn't hard. Coleman is filled with two types of men in transition: Some are 'halfway out' - almost ready to go home after finishing their prison terms. Others are 'halfway back' - one step away from returning to prison after violating parole.
'Getting burned is part of this process,' Arroyo said as he walked by a four-foot sign in Coleman's hall reading 'STOP LYING.'
Born in Jersey City, N.J., Arroyo spent his childhood in Brooklyn and his teen years at a house at Fourth and Cumberland.
Arroyo never thought he'd work in prisons. He studied languages - Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish and German - at Temple University and expected to become an interpreter. He applied for a job as a bilingual counselor at Graterford in 1978 only after a college friend who worked there pestered him about it relentlessly. Arroyo remembers leaning forward during the interview and saying bluntly to the superintendent, 'I'll never stay more than two years.'
Looking back now, he attributes his career path to his mother, who was always helping others in her spare time. A textile worker, she spent her off hours helping her Spanish-speaking neighbors find their way around the city's social services. Arroyo remembers the summer she recruited him, at age 13, to help a neighbor find a job.
He also remembers the temptations of the streets. Sometimes he would cut classes or drink with friends. But he always sensed when he was sliding into trouble. 'That's when I heard my mother calling me,' he said. 'I always stayed on this side of the line. But just on this side of the line.'
Arroyo counts himself lucky. His parents set rules, supported him, and punished him when he fell short. The solid family structure gave him a model to build his own family on: a son, Andy, 25, and two boxers named Rico and Chili that he calls 'my second and third sons.'
Many people he works with today never had such a structure. And some have been in the prison system so long they have never learned simple life tasks, such as doing their own laundry or managing a bank account.
Wali Smith, an ex-Graterford inmate who served 15 years for bank robbery, said Arroyo himself provided that structure to inmates.
'A lot of prisoners never really had benchmarks set for them to reach,' Smith said. 'He set an example.'
Smith said Arroyo sometimes brought his son, who has a mental disability and cerebral palsy, to work and would sometimes let the inmates take care of him. Or he would get his wife, Yvette, an English as a second language teacher, involved in prison functions.
'He was a hands-on person and a person that showed you how to be a parent,' Smith said. 'That would make you feel like you wanted to do those things. It made you feel whole.'
Smith, now working as the community liaison for the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network, said he believed Arroyo would help the men at Coleman find structure in their lives.
'He made you stand up and measure up,' Smith said. 'He had standards. And you wanted to meet them.'

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