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New tools for inmates Mail Tribune / Steve Johnson Michael Taylor, 25, of Medford, rakes leaves along Bear Creek at Hawthorne Park as a crew member from the Community Justice Work Center. The center gives nonviolent offenders the opportunity to improve their lives through work ethic and education. County provides work, education for nonviolent offenders By Dani Dodge Mark Belangee works up a sweat as he and a half-dozen others clear underbrush along Bear Creek. The day isn�t hot, but the men are working with fierce intensity: pulling weeds, hacking down ugly overgrown vegetation and piling the dead branches and thorny scramble into dump trucks. They don�t slack off the pace during the eight-hour shift except to take a couple breaks. And they go from one task to the next without needing direction. It would be hard to distinguish them from self-employed, overbooked landscapers with a passion for perfectionism. Except for their all-orange attire: the badge of incarceration. "I love landscaping; it�s like art," said Belangee, 47, of Shady Cove. "I don�t look at it as work." Belangee, who is serving 20 days for a third-degree theft, is one of six men in the Community Justice work crew who cleaned up the Bear Creek Greenway between East Main and Jackson streets last week. On July 1, Jackson County�s Community Justice department � a combination of juvenile justice and the parole and probation office � took over the Talent Work Release Center from the county sheriff and renamed it the Community Justice Work Center. The idea was to transform what had become an overflow holding center for the jail into a place where men serving time for nonviolent offenses could change their lives through education and work ethic. Six days a week, the men work from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.; in the evenings they take classes such as cognitive restructuring. The classes focus on patterns of anti-social thinking that lead to crime and incarceration, and ways of breaking those cycles of thought. After several hours of class, they sleep in one of several large rooms at the facility � only to be awakened again at 5 a.m. the next day. In addition to looking at jail in a different way, the new Community Justice center has another big plus: It�s cheap. The money the work crews earn pays for about two-thirds of the inmates� keep and education. The inmates make only $1 a day. However, in this program, they aren�t called inmates � they�re clients. Before Community Justice Director Bob Grindstaff suggested his department take over the Talent facility, the county was considering simply shutting it down because of the cost. The 59-bed, minimum-security facility on South Pacific Highway was costing the county $750,000 a year to run. Officials hope with money from the work crew contracts, they will eventually make the facility completely self-sufficient. And although it�s early to make definitive assessments, officials believe the facility is well on its way to a successful future. Not that there haven�t been a few bumps along the way. The system of furloughs was changed after a couple people didn�t return and a few others came back with drugs in their systems. Early on, there was a lot of employee turnover because most of the people hired to work at the facility had never worked in an institution before � and quickly realized it wasn�t for them. "I think we�re learning little things every day," Grindstaff said. Four to six work crews go out at 7 a.m. Monday through Saturday. The hired crew supervisor drives the van that pulls a trailer filled to the brim with landscaping equipment like saws, rakes and shovels. The inmates have worked fires, cleaned up cemeteries and readied Talent streets for the Harvest Festival. And while some of the clients see working every day as a great alternative to sitting in a jail doing their time, others, like Anthony Ross, 42, of Medford, call it "slave labor." The program uses incentives � like the privilege of smoking � to make the inmates work, he said. "I think they�re manipulating inmates to get more money for the county by giving them cigarettes," Ross said. "They force us to go to cog (cognitive restructuring class) ... take away the TV and it�s like your whole day is controlled: It�s work, then dinner, then class." But as he talks, Ross thins a bed of irises with incredible skill. He works without stopping, and after one task is completed, he goes to the work crew truck to pull out the tools he needs for the next without asking what he should do. Like the other inmates, he just sees what needs to be done and does it without whining. And a sense of pride surrounds him. "I just stay in one area until it looks good," he explained. Other inmates, though, said the classes have helped them see where they�ve gone wrong in the past. They said they prefer working to sitting around � cigarettes or no cigarettes. And, even Ross admitted that working with the community justice people is more enjoyable than dealing with jail guards. Jeff Grischkowsky, 21, of Medford, said being in the Community Justice program is like having "a big group of parents" looking out for him. "County jail is cops," he said. "These are regular people off the street who applied for a job because they want to make a difference." Grischkowsky is a well-spoken and insightful young man who is serving time for a parole violation. He said he�s sick of jail and wants to attend college so he can make something of his life. "You can graduate all the programs and still make the wrong choices," he reasoned. "But the point is to learn to take a step back from your decisions and think about the consequences." The inmates are inspired by some of the people around them in the program, like crew supervisor Frank Drake. Drake, 44, once had been in their shoes. A former heroin addict, he had experienced jail from the inside. But he changed his life 15 years ago. After kicking his addiction, he went into sheetrocking. When he saw the ad for a Community Justice crew supervisor this spring, he thought he could offer the inmates something extra. "When you are caught in the system, it�s hard ... These guys feel like there�s no way out," Drake said. "But I try to show them I�m an example of getting out." He works right alongside the inmates, raking, pruning and heaving huge tarps full of debris into trucks, his tattooed forearms glistening with sweat. "I feel like these guys work better if you work with them rather than being someone who is in authority just saying, �Do this,� " Drake explained. At the end of the weeklong Bear Creek job Friday, Drake broke out a special treat for a job well done: some store-bought chips and his own homemade salsa � a fiery, garlicky concoction so good several of the inmates tried to talk Drake into marketing it commercially. It was caviar compared to the soggy peanut butter sandwiches in their jailhouse brown-bag lunches. After a day of hard work, the clients go back to the facility, eat dinner and then attend classes. Although most of the inmates believe the classes can help them, or at least pretend to, others simply rebel against the classroom environment. In the classroom, there�s all the same posturing most people remember from junior high school: the kid who enthusiastically shoots his hand up first to answer questions, the kid who mumbles quietly hoping no one will hear, and the kid who, in the old days, got beaned by a teacher�s eraser. Michael Taylor, 25, of Medford, would be the eraser target. Though when he�s out on the crew he works just as hard or harder than everyone else, he bristles when he walks into class. Taylor � who is serving 60 days for drinking alcohol while on parole � saunters into a recent class, takes the one good cushioned chair, then throws his feet up onto another. Although he was cheerful while out at work, during class the bearded man is agitated. He pulls his orange pantlegs up over his knees, kicks off his jail-issue sandals and tries to interject counterarguments to the teacher�s lessons � such as insisting that if he didn�t get arrested for it, there would be no problems with smoking marijuana. "I�m only here because I have to be and don�t want to be," he announces. The teacher, Jim Boeckl, thanks him for his honesty. "The whole principle of why this exists is to promote pro-social behavior," Boeckl says. "People will come here and not be ready to make changes ... but I know some of you here think, �I�ve been in this system way too long and I�m really to make changes,� " The class goes over decision-making models, and how to factor in consequences. Students discuss what it takes to achieve inner peace and why drugs and alcohol really can�t get someone there. Boeckl shows the inmates the results of positive and negative reinforcement using his dog, Jasper, who also attends class. Most of those in the class said they were glad for the opportunity to learn something that may change their lives. Kurt Elmore, 35, of White City, is serving six months for a domestic violence charge. During class he�s always first to raise his muscular arm. He said the program has given him a sense of direction, and helped him realize he just can�t drink alcohol. It�s also helped him rethink his past choices. "Next time my wife and I start arguing, I have to say, �I love you. Bye.� And jump out the window," Elmore said. "Whatever I have to do." He only wishes he�d learned these lessons earlier. "If they�d had something like this when I was 18 and first in, I probably wouldn�t have been back," Elmore said. "Back then going to jail was like a high school reunion. But now I�ve got a family and need to get it together." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA