Jail Classes Help Grads Break Out of a Limited Environment

Sambo Lorn returned to the Santa Ana city jail Tuesday, a month after being released, but this time it was to celebrate.

Lorn was one of seven graduates from a pilot program offered by Santa Ana College that allows inmates to take college courses and receive credits transferable to colleges and universities.

Lorn, 29, who came from Cambodia in 1984, said his failure to understand American culture was part of the reason for his run-ins with the law, starting with a fight in high school and eventually leading to a manslaughter conviction in 1992.

He also spent three years in INS custody because he did not have a green card.

The jail classes “helped me understand people and the differences in cultures,” he said Tuesday, beaming as he looked at his graduation certificate.

The first students completed two college courses: introduction to sociology, and marriage and family, both of which transfer to most colleges under the Inmate Distance Education program.

Classes require as many hours as do sessions at a college, but there are no instructors, so participants must be self-motivated.

Students gather in a classroom, watch a videotape and follow the instructions.

On exam days, a facilitator passes out the tests, supervises and collects the materials, which go to a professor at Santa Ana College for grading.

Students are on their own to read textbooks and review lessons.

“It’s the first program of its kind” in Orange County, said Fernie Espinoza, detention supervisor at the jail.

“It really allows them to believe in themselves.”

Officials began the program this year after some inmates complained of a lack of educational opportunities after they had finished high school equivalency and taken all available non-credit college classes.

It has been successful, officials said. For the summer session, which starts June 23, there are 25 inmates on the waiting list for the program, which can take only 16.

“Staying focused, motivating, concentrating, encouraging each other was very hard,” said Jose Arriola, 30, who has been in jail for two years, awaiting trial in a drug case.

“But seeing each other wanting to change our lives and wanting to change our way of thinking inspired us. We looked at this class like it was another opportunity for us to do something right in our lives.”

In brief speeches at Tuesday’s ceremony, which also honored 10 inmates getting high-school diplomas, the graduates were jubilant, giddy, sometimes emotional.

Many expressed thanks to their families and the jail staff.

Pablo Enriquez, 28, of Santa Ana became the first in his family to take college courses. He had dropped out of school in seventh grade.

“I’ve never done anything with my life, never studied before, so this is really exciting,” said Enriquez, who is married and has 9-year-old twins.

“I kept remembering what my friend told me: to never let a day go away without learning something new. It was a struggle,” Enriquez said, “but it paid off.”