Terminal Island Prisoners Get Second Chance in Class

If Owen Lynch had his way, he would be in school 18 hours a day, every day.

But Lynch, 37, can’t have his way in much of anything.

An inmate at the Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution, Lynch gets to take two hours of class five days a week--scarcely enough time to get him through a single lesson in one of his basic education study books.

Lynch, however, is the most enthusiastic of the 12 inmates in his class, all of whom are struggling to meet the federal Bureau of Prisons’ literacy goals. Learning to read has created a hunger in Lynch, but some of his classmates are not at all happy about being in school again.

Prison regulations require that inmates who cannot pass an eighth-grade academic skills test attend at least 90 days of class to improve their abilities. Later this year, the standard will be raised to 120 days of mandatory class time for new inmates who cannot pass a 12th-grade test.

To sweeten the deal, inmates who pass the eighth-grade test earn as much as 50% more at their prison jobs than workers who have not passed. Working inmates earn only pennies each hour, starting at about 11 cents.

Whether inmates treat the educational standards as just another punishment or treat their time in class as a remarkable gift, they are welcomed by teacher Pamela Olson.

“There’s just a whole realm of personalities and attitudes to work with,” said Olson, a new instructor who began teaching the basic adult education class at the prison last month. “Some are really motivated. Others have to be continually prompted. . . . They need to know that, yes, you can learn. You can.”

There are no lectures in this class. Instead, each student studies from workbooks that match his education level. Olson passes the two hours walking slowly through the classroom, offering encouragement and answering questions.

For most inmates in the class, the experience is their first stab at education in decades. Unfortunately, many are not very happy about being there.

“I know how to read and write well enough to get along in the world,” said Gerald Garey, 29, as he studied long division. “They’re forcing me to be here. It’s not what I want to do.”

Angry that a previous teacher “thought we were just a bunch of convicts no good to anybody,” Garey said compelling inmates to attend class “is pretty stupid.”

“If you don’t want to learn, I don’t care how much they shove it at you, you’re not going to learn,” he said.

Other students say they started off angry but have ended up pleased that the prison forced them into a classroom.

“I’m here because I was a drug addict and I got caught,” said Jesus Olguin, 46. “They didn’t imprison me. They just rescued me.”

Last enrolled in school in 1961, Olguin said he was illiterate when he began his studies in prison 14 months ago.

“I couldn’t read. I couldn’t write,” he said. “Now there’s practically no book I can’t read. . . . I used to ask people to write (letters) for me. Now I can write it myself.”

Olguin’s craving for drugs is gone now, he said, and in its place he has discovered a craving for knowledge. He said the years he lived in a daze before his conviction are fading from his memory.

“It’s only when you’re dead that you know what it’s like to be alive,” he said. “I know I’m alive now and, man, am I ready for this (education).”

But even some students who have a healthy educational background disagree with the prison’s policy of forced schooling.

Larry Campbell, 38, says he is being forced to attend class even though he was six credits shy of graduating from the University of San Francisco when he was arrested for bank robbery.

Campbell said the robbery was a last-ditch effort to avoid becoming homeless when he was heavily in debt, about to lose his job and desperate to finish school so he could find other work. Now he will be behind bars until 1996.

Although Campbell passed the language portion of the prison test easily, his mathematics skills fell short. Now he is reviewing how to subtract fractions and hoping to take the test again next month.

“We’re all grown men here. We shouldn’t be forced to do this,” Campbell said. “We’re already forced to be behind bars. Isn’t that enough?”

For Lynch, the answer is no.

“Two hours a day just isn’t enough for me,” he said. “I felt like I was illiterate when I came in here. . . . I used to get newspapers, magazines, anything with words on it, and I would stay up all night with some coffee going over it and over it until I knew the words . . . but I didn’t understand them. Comprehending it, I couldn’t do.”

Encouraged by the four months he has spent in class, Lynch, a convicted robber, is torn between going to school and his prison release, three months away.

“I don’t want to stay in prison, but if I had a choice between working and going to school, I would prefer going to school,” he said. “I know I’ve got to get a job to support myself . . . but I know that even if I have more experience doing something than a guy with a high school diploma, they’re going to pick him because he’s got that piece of paper.”

Prison officials say that is exactly why they are increasing the educational standards for all inmates.

“When these inmates are released to compete with people in the general society for jobs, one of the tools we can equip them with is an education,” said Joan Seifert, supervisor of education at Terminal Island. “It used to be a high school diploma was really something, and now that’s the minimum people expect.”

To encourage inmates to earn their high school equivalency certificates, prison regulations bar them from vocational training classes until they have done so.