Friends Outside Bring Companionship, Help to Inmates

It’s 1:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, and Arleta resident Sara Roodbari, 22, is heading south down the freeway to Sybil Brand, the county jail for women.

She parks her car and enters the facility, showing her badge to the sheriff’s deputy at the gate.

Once inside, she follows the yellow line to the visiting room, where she hands another deputy a paper with two names and booking numbers on it.

After a short conversation, the deputy goes off to bring one of the two inmates back to the visitor’s room.

Roodbari is a volunteer with Friends Outside, an organization founded 40 years ago in Santa Clara in Northern California.

Its purpose, according to Mary Weaver, the executive director of the Pasadena-based Los Angeles County chapter, is to “reduce inadvertent effects of incarceration on families, particularly children of prisoners who are at high risk of themselves becoming incarcerated.”

The agency, supported by public and private funds, works toward helping clients return to society with some of the tools that will help them stay out of the criminal justice system.

That may mean helping someone find a halfway house or substance-abuse program or clothing or lodging or just a ride somewhere when release is imminent. It might mean helping families of inmates with financial and emotional problems. It also means talking to people while they are incarcerated.

Roodbari is one of the many volunteers who came to the organization while studying sociology at Valley College in Van Nuys. The school offers three units of transferable credit for volunteering. Roodbari says the opportunity to participate in the program has been an invaluable reality check for her.

On this particular day she will only see one inmate at the Sybil Brand Institute in Monterey Park. The other woman on her list has a court date. The inmate she does see is a 47-year-old woman serving time for petty theft.

Like many others, this inmate has requested a Friends Outside volunteer to visit simply for the opportunity to talk to someone. The woman has no family, and her only friend recently died.

Roodbari no longer sees another woman, the 27-year-old woman who was awaiting trial on murder charges. She has been tried and sentenced and transferred to state prison in Chowchilla.

Roodbari leaves the jail about an hour later, promising the inmate she will return next week. Keeping promises is a must with Friends Outside volunteers.

Like Roodbari, Martin Sosa was born and brought up in the Valley and began working with Friends Outside in 1992 while a student at Valley College.

After requesting to visit juveniles, he was surprised to be put with two young Asian men, one Vietnamese and one Cambodian. “I speak Spanish, so I thought I would be working with Latinos,” says Sosa, who adds that he felt the visits to the two young men were worthwhile because neither was visited by family members.

Sosa, now in his 40s, had returned to school after a young adulthood that included marriage, a son, divorce and several brushes with the law, often fueled by a drinking problem.

After getting his own life on track, including dealing with his alcoholism, he says he has been happy to help others on their path to rehabilitation. “Helping others is an important part of my recovery,” Sosa says.

He evidently was good at being helpful. For the past three years he has been a paid staff member of the Friends Outside organization working out of the Pasadena office.

He visits inmates, listens to problems with a non-judgmental attitude. He contacts assigned public defenders on their behalf. He contacts relatives to help with welfare problems or with children at risk of getting into trouble. He helps with activities for family members and refers them to special programs, like the one run by Sherman Oaks therapist Charlyne Gelt.

Gelt, a marriage and family counselor, holds a bimonthly group meeting for families of people in jail or prison. She donates her time to anyone who wants to join the group and who is referred by Friends Outside.

She conducts a two-hour Saturday morning group counseling session during which both emotional and concrete issues are discussed and dealt with.

Gelt says she volunteers her time because she endorses the Friends Outside program. “If the chain of dysfunctional behavior in families is not broken, everyone in society suffers. I’m just doing what I can,” she says.

According to Executive Director Weaver: “Our criminal population is growing and costing more and more money. Our work goes toward cutting down on those entering the criminal justice system and helping them stay out.”

Jeannette Bouvard, volunteer coordinator, says the organization is always looking for people, not only to make jail visits, but also to help with office work and organizing special events like the Friends Outside picnic to be held Saturday at Garfield Park in South Pasadena. The picnic is open to family members who contact the Friends Outside office in advance.

Bouvard says anyone over 18 may volunteer, but she adds that they must go through a rigorous background check and training.

Those volunteering for jail visits typically spend two hours a week at one of the county facilities. The primary prerequisites for those volunteers is dependability and the ability to be non-judgmental, Bouvard says.

Use of Drug Is an Epidemic, Says Family Practice Doctor

Crystal meth is a cheap methamphetamine whose use, according to health experts, has become epidemic.

According to Geoffrey Phelan, a physician in family practice in Palmdale, the drug’s use is now so pervasive that it is affecting the Southern California quality of life.

The doctor says he conducted an informal survey among the young people he sees and found that between 50% and 75% were users.

“That figure was so astonishing to me I couldn’t believe it myself,” he said. “Crystal meth used to be just a biker drug, but now that the so-called Mexican Mafia has taken over the distribution, everyone seems to be snorting, sniffing or smoking the stuff.”

Phelan will be one of five health experts appearing on a panel to discuss how the drug is affecting the workplace by increasing injuries, medical costs, and liability risks and decreasing worker productivity.

The meeting will be held in the dining room of the sponsoring Desert Palms Community Hospital in Palmdale at 8 a.m. April 27.

The public may attend.

Overheard:

“My dog has fleas, and I’m happy about it. It’s the only problem that I feel competent to deal with these days.”

Woman with an itchy English sheep dog to another woman at a doggie grooming parlor in Woodland Hills.