Down Time : State Prisoners Make Broken Computers Run Again

Computer-starved schools in California now have a unique source for equipment. It lies about 150 yards inside an electric death fence.

There, Dwayne Baxter tests microchips and replaces hard drives, turning castoff equipment into usable computers that are donated to public schools. He and about 30 other workers receive no pay in cash. They are compensated with an even more valuable commodity: time.

These workers are all maximum-security inmates at California State Prison--Los Angeles County. For every day they spend repairing the computers, they can get up to a day taken off their sentences.

Within a year, according to state estimates, up to 3,000 computers will be refurbished every month in California prisons for donation to schools.

Baxter, 27, said that recycling the computers is far more rewarding than other prison jobs.

“If it weren’t for the fact that this is going to the kids, I wouldn’t be as enthusiastic,” said Baxter, who must spend at least another five years behind bars for an offense he declined to name.

“We all wish we had done something a little differently out on the streets. This class lets me know I’m doing something positive. I’m not just serving it day after day, getting my meals and going to sleep.”

The California Department of Corrections is also enthused. The program, launched last August at the state prison in Lancaster and three other institutions, will soon be in seven other California prisons.

Recently, the Lancaster prison donated 100 revamped computers to schools in Los Angeles, Compton and Tehachapi. Almost 300 more were turned over to the Detwiler Foundation, which distributes computers statewide through its Computers for Schools Program.

Proponents say the project benefits the prisoners as well as the students because inmates are learning a skill that could help them find a high-paying job after their release.

“The hope is that many of the people who learn that skill will find that it’s easier to earn money than to steal it,” says John Detwiler, a La Jolla businessman and president of the foundation bearing his name. “For every criminal who is rehabilitated, there may be fewer victims.”

When the project is up and running at 11 prisons, state inmates are expected to process at least 70% of the computers handed out by the foundation. The other 30% will be refurbished at vocational training centers, community colleges and California Youth Authority facilities.

The need for computers in California classrooms is beyond dispute, program administrators say.

A 1994 survey found that California’s kindergarten through 12th grade public schools possessed one computer for each 19.5 students. That ranked the state 48th in providing students with computers. Top-ranked Wyoming has 8.1 per student.

To raise California’s score, the foundation was formed in 1991 to collect personal computers discarded by large companies when they upgrade.

But many of the used computers the foundation obtained were not in top working condition.

The Department of Corrections agreed to take on some of the required repair work last August. As of June 15, the four prisons in the pilot program had refurbished 1,547 computers.

Each prison retains up to 20% of the computers repaired for donation to any school or other group it deems worthy. Ernest Roe, warden of the Lancaster prison, recently met with Antelope Valley area school superintendents to set up a process to get some of the units into local classrooms.

During the prison project’s first year, computer refurbishing was somewhat slow because the inmates had to learn how to disassemble, test and repair the units. Often, inmates had to improvise, combining parts from two donated machines to produce one working model.

As the inmates have gained experience, prison instructors say, the speed of the repair has picked up.

“All I’m asking of my guys is one machine per man, per day,” said Harry Broddock, who teaches the computer repair program at the Lancaster prison. Broddock was hired to teach the class under the prison’s vocational training program. “At the end of each day, I have 20 machines ready to be shipped out.”

The Lancaster program can accommodate only about 30 inmates. But with more than 100 on a waiting list, the prison is looking for a second instructor.

Broddock, a retired Air Force pilot, said he does not fear he is turning out tomorrow’s criminal hackers. His focus is almost entirely on hardware--not programming or theory.

“I don’t teach about the inside of each chip,” Broddock says. “That doesn’t matter. If it works, it’s OK. If it doesn’t, we replace it.”

Roe agrees. “It’s just a repair program,” he says. “I see it as no different from what we teach in a program like auto mechanics: They go in, diagnose a problem and make the necessary repairs.”

Nevertheless, inmates in the class face tight security measures. Parts and tools are counted regularly. Inmates who leave the work area must pass through a metal detector and undergo a strip search.

Modems are removed from all computers handled by inmates so they cannot use them to make contacts outside the prison. Computer diskettes are also closely watched to make sure an inmate doesn’t use one in a prison office computer to download records.

“We’ve also got a business to run, keeping track of these guys,” said Hugh Haines, a Corrections Department administrator who oversees the computer repair classes. “We don’t want them messing with our system.”

For inmate Rashid McCarter, 29, one of Broddock’s star pupils, computers are a key to a brighter future. McCarter has spent 11 years in prison and did not want to talk about how much more time he has to go.

But when he is released, he believes a job fixing computers will keep him on the outside.

“The majority of people who come back do so because they didn’t have a career plan,” McCarter says. “This is definitely the road to the right track.”