The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The Department of Corrections saw a $1.2 billion budget cut in 2009, forcing the department to pick certain programs to be reworked or discarded, according to spokeswoman Peggy Bengs.

Adult programs and rehabilitation programs took the brunt of it, as two-thirds of their budgets disappeared. Cutting certain classes, like mill and cabinetry, on a statewide scale saves the department $250 million, Bengs said.

"The state is emphasizing programs that reduce recidivism,” Bengs said. “We’re looking at vocational programs linked to job market demands that take 12 months to complete. Those reduce recidivism by 9 percent.”

The programs that survived budget cuts tended to be those that provide certification on top of satisfying the job market in the area where prisoners spend their parole periods.

The state prioritizes programs that can provide those certificates, Bengs said. Those include the automotive or welding programs, among others.

In Bland’s view, the mill and cabinetry program provides his students not only skills that can be used in a number of areas, but also valuable life skills that prepare people who haven’t had normal social interaction for the workplace.

“It can be tough,” he said. “You have a small shop and a lot of people. Personalities can clash.”

And part of the training is learning to work with people of different races, personality types and backgrounds. Learning a trade teaches them confidence, he said, a commodity a person doesn’t have a lot of when they are released with the stigma of having served time.

Bland created the class using state-mandated curriculum and textbooks, but put a heavy dash of his own hands-on style in to make sure his students learned. Students who had been around longer were put in charge of projects and given a team of less-experienced students to encourage peer teaching, Bland said.

He was there to supervise, answer questions and solve problems, both with the cabinets and between the inmates. He also made sure the shop had what it needed to be a good learning environment.

At this point, he said, the shop is state-of-the-art.

“It’s a wonderful shop, the state has been kind to me,” Bland said. “They put you in there and you make it what it is. You decide what to buy, what kind of machinery and how you run it.”

To get some of the supplies, Bland wrote grants and lobbied for resources.

The happy beneficiaries of the program include not just prisoners, but also budget-weary state and local agencies that need the services the program provides but can’t afford — like the Mi-Wuk-Sugar Pine Fire Protection District.

Fire Chief Randy Miller had a problem. The department needed a new firehouse, but it had a $20,000 budget to create a multi-purpose 1,300-square-foot building.

“You pay for stuff and then you blink your eyes and that budget is gone,” Miller said.

By using Bland’s shop, the fire department only had to pay for the materials needed to make the cabinets for the kitchen, saving a hefty sum of money for quality work, Miller said.

“For what it cost us, there is no way I could get this stuff, no way,” he said. “We had them put a cabinet in that we’ll put a counter top on. When it came back, we had to nudge that thing in there. It fit perfectly.”

Now that the program is ending, Bland is already getting calls for cabinet work in the county. He owned a business, Precision Woodworking, in the area from 1982 to 2000 when he quit to work in the prisons. But he’s not sure if he wants to launch a new business at this point in his life.

He doesn’t have a shop, and the shop at the prison will be dismantled. Equipment that can’t be used by the Education Department as a result of reductions will be given away to other institutions that request the equipment, Bengs said.

“If I’m laid off, I’m going to have to do something,” Bland said. “It’ll be low key.”
http://www.uniondemocrat.com/2010010598784/News/Local-News/Prison-to-ax-its-woodworking-classes