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| Gay jail inmates get chance to learn |
| By Los Angeles Times |
| Published: 04/12/2004 |
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Strictly speaking, the graduation exercise that took place on the fourth floor Los Angeles County's Men's Central Jail last week wasn't much of a rite of passage since the graduates weren't going anywhere any time soon. Nonetheless, the hourlong celebration in honor of 15 gay male inmates who had earned high school diplomas or GEDs, or completed 10-week courses in drug rehabilitation, anger management and life skills moistened as many eyes per capita as any traditional school commencement. "I am the most free I've ever been," a tall young man who had completed the drug education course said from the podium as emotion caught at his words. "I am finally able to like me. Today, everything is so bright, even when I close my eyes. I died years ago, and now I'm alive." Men's Central, a somber, echoing fortress, is a monument to personal failure, but the Social Mentoring Academic and Rehabilitative Training, or SMART, program, available to the 350 inmates in its three gay-only dormitories, has been a remarkable success. In the 4 1/2years of its existence, fewer than a third of the 157 inmates who have completed the 10-week life skills course have returned to jail, said Deputy Randy Bell, a former teacher who co-founded and co-directs the program. Before SMART, he said, nearly 95% of gay inmates found their way back to county jail, a rate that dwarfs estimates for general-population inmates. Because of a federal court order issued in 1985, Los Angeles County's is believed by correctional professionals to be the only penal system in the United States where gay inmates are automatically segregated. No programs aimed at gays existed, however, until Bell and Deputy Bart Lanni put together SMART with little more than duct tape and tirelessness. Having no access to Sheriff's Department funds, the pair equipped their operation by haunting yard sales and twisting the arms of friends and neighbors for donations of cash and old computers. They tapped into L.A.'s gay community for support, and invited into the jail such outside agencies as the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, which conducts high school, GED and computer classes; the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, which tests prisoners for sexually transmitted diseases; and the Tarzana Treatment Center, which provides treatment help to inmates with HIV or AIDS. The center of the enterprise, and the site of last week's graduation, is the newly christened Greenfield Learning Center, named after Barry Greenfield, a member of the West Hollywood Public Safety Commission and an ardent SMART supporter. |
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