News - 2005
Re-entry center aims to prepare inmates for outside world Rocky Mountain News
Washington, October 17, 2005
By Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News
COLORADO SPRINGS - A new corrections facility is breaking down hardened inmates, preparing them for the real world with dorm rooms, inspirational messages and courtesy titles.
Officially, the Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center is a medium- security prison. The view from the parking lot includes a fenced-in yard, rolls of barbed wire and a security guard.
But inside, the most intensive re-entry facility in state history operates as a specialized way station for inmates now garbed in green scrubs but about to become someone's next door neighbor. An intense schedule of classes, softer architecture and more civilized language aim to change inmates' lives, reduce recidivism and make streets safer.
"We want them to think about treatment and get their brain going in a way they haven't thought about before," said warden Robert Hood, who formerly oversaw the federal, high-security Supermax facility in Florence.
National interest in re-entry programs has spiked in recent years, with more and more prisoners being released each year.
More than 600,000 inmates earned their freedom in the U.S. in 2004, according to a study published last year by Joan Petersilia, a University of California at Irvine professor.
The tan, brick and concrete Cheyenne Mountain building, located in an industrial area, is run by Community Education Centers, a private New Jersey company.
The company commissioned a study of New Jersey prisoners, published in 2004, which found that after one year, 34.5 percent of those who had completed a CEC program had been rearrested. The figure for a group of inmates who had not gone through the program was 47 percent.
With Cheyenne Mountain open only since Aug. 15, it is too early for a comprehensive report card, said Jim Webber, a Colorado Department of Corrections monitor who oversees the facility.
But officials report no major incidents so far. Glitches include at least one computer program that is not up and running, the absence of a sound system in one room where classes are held and a decision to add razor wire to the segregation yard.
Four inmates have refused to participate in the program and are being shipped back to standard prison.
"They really do actually seem to care about putting together a good program there for the inmates," Webber said of CEC. "There's a lot of positive offender participation and I've been pretty pleased with it so far."
Some of Cheyenne Mountain's best spokesmen are the inmates.
"The fact that they call you a resident rather than an inmate makes you start to think you're a person," said Anthony LaBate, serving time for theft and heroin possession out of Denver and Adams counties. He was one of eight randomly selected inmates interviewed recently.
The Rocky Mountain News this month became the first media outlet to tour Cheyenne Mountain since inmates moved in.
Statistics spurred change.
The prison was born out of a number of criminal justice statistics that the state hopes to cut.
Colorado's prison population in the past 10 years has doubled to more than 21,000.
This year, the state will move about 8,000 inmates back into the community, but recidivism has been running at about 50 percent, which means that about half could be back behind bars within three years. The state spends an average of $30,000 a year to incarcerate a prisoner.
At one point, the state operated a pre-release facility that consisted of trailers in Ca��on City, but it was not as comprehensive as Cheyenne Mountain, said Alison Morgan, who is in charge of monitoring private prison units.
The program ended several years ago, after the trailers became run-down and the number of offenders being released overwhelmed that one facility.
The state's eventual solution was to contract with a private company, which built the Cheyenne Mountain center on its own dime.
CEC, in turn, earns the standard $50.28 per day from the state to feed, house and educate each inmate. The state has contracted 500 beds at Cheyenne Mountain and budgeted $7.5 million for the first year of operation.
CEC built the Cheyenne Mountain center with future growth in mind. The all-male facility includes 798 beds with 48 set aside for inmates who are having problems. The head count one day earlier this month was 312.
In re-entry programs at traditional facilities, inmates may ramp up their skills classes to about 15 hours a week in the three months before leaving, Morgan said.
But there are still prisons that offer inmates nothing more than the traditional $100 check and a goodbye.
The Cheyenne Mountain program lasts 180 days, and the facility has taken a new step by assessing inmates near the end of their incarceration. Meanwhile, the building also is chipping away at their prison mindset.
Traditional prison cells hold one or two inmates. Prisoners talk of being alienated, with their own bathrooms and TVs, stewing in their own thoughts.
Cheyenne Mountain inmates sleep in dorms of eight to 12. The rooms have stand-alone lockers and a phone with a restricted line for approved numbers.
Inmates share a bathroom across the hall from the dorm room, and when they have time to watch TV, it is in a day room.
The group living forces prisoners to deal with others - much as they will have to when re-entering the workplace and society.
Cheyenne Mountain offers a gym, outdoor recreation yard and exercise machines, but no weights, which can push inmates to see who is "bigger and tougher," Hood said.
Poster-sized inspirational signs fill the walls, and officials estimate that there are hundreds throughout the facility's four floors.
Painted in green letters on white backgrounds, the signs include sayings such as, "God Hears You," "Make Better Decisions," "Practice Humility," "Get Out, Stay Out," "Expect the Unexpected," and "It's The First Drink That Gets You Drunk."
Inmates are called residents and "Mr." With a nod to eliminating prison titles, Hood is the director, not the warden.
"There's some re-engineering that occurs for all of us," Hood said.
Typical day is full.
A typical inmate's weekday runs from wake-up call at 5:45 a.m. to lights out at 11 p.m., and shakes out to eight hours of work and class. Meals, recreation and some private time round out the hours. Weekends begin a bit later but feature a full regimen that can include visitation and religious study.
After weekday breakfast, inmates hold an informal meeting to discuss mostly interpersonal issues such as conflicts with other inmates. Next is the 8 a.m. morning meeting that includes a discussion of the day's news.
Classes include the mandatory core curriculum that focuses on better decision-making. The rest of the day, inmates are funneled into a variety of smaller and more specialized programs, depending on their needs.
Such classes include "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," parenting and GED prep. In one class, instructor Sandra Thomas talks of the outlandish things that inmates have done to get drugs.
"Are you willing to put that much effort into recovery?" she asks about 50 students.
"Yes!" one inmate shouts.
"Being clean, being sober. It's one of the hardest, scariest things in your life," Thomas said of the changes that inmates will have to make.
Thomas recognizes that some inmates will say and do just what they need to get by.
"Some are here playing the game," she said after class, "but for the most part, these guys are serious about getting out."
Theophus Williams, 30, said he is serving 30 months for marijuana and cocaine possession out of Jefferson County. He was at the Huerfano County Correctional Facility in Walsenburg when he was ordered to pack up at 2 a.m. and was moved to Cheyenne Mountain. At Huerfano, he became addicted to his TV but had to leave it behind. He admits he wasn't happy.
But sitting in the dining room at Cheyenne Mountain after a month, he gives the facility high marks.
"You actually are forced to look at some of the s--- you're doing," he said. "Here, there's basically nothing to do but the classes."
Ramon Montano, serving time for drug possession, likes the women at Cheyenne Mountain.
The 26-year-old says that women worked at the other prisons where he served, but that they weren't friendly. At Cheyenne Mountain, he has an incentive to make his bed and get a nice haircut.
"They treat us like a person again," he said.
The undercurrent of hope among inmates greases the gears at Cheyenne Mountain. But Montano said that losing hope is also the biggest fear.
That's because not all Cheyenne Mountain inmates will go free. Some must still win approval from the parole board or a Community Corrections board, which oversees a post-prison monitoring program that includes halfway houses.
Officials believe that going through Cheyenne Mountain will help. But there is no guarantee.
"What if we get sent back to prison?" said Montano, who explains that he is up for parole in January. " . . . You don't want to give somebody so much hope. I've had that taken away from me."
Some at Cheyenne Mountain volunteered to go to through the re-entry program. Others were simply told to pack up and were shipped off.
Either way, the Department of Corrections screened for issues including low to medium levels of mental health and security needs, Webber said.
Inmate Darnell Hubbart, 37, says the jobs and TVs in standard prisons simply help inmates pass the time. At Cheyenne Mountain, he said, he is taught to think positively, talk things through and find solutions.
Hubbart said he has been serving 12 years for a string of crimes including assault and burglary.
He hopes inmates will be allowed to return to Cheyenne Mountain - as successful alumni who can guide others.
"It's going to work," he said of the program.
[email protected] or 303-892-2406 Copyright 2005, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
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