Youth offenders graduate
Class of 2012 is the last for Spring Creek
Heidi Zemach | For The LOG
Spring Creek Class of 2012 Graduates with teachers Gary Blount and Jennifer Swanders (left) and teacher Mary Alice Blount and Principal Monica Hinders (right), and Kenai Peninsula Borough School Superintendent Steve Atwater.
Regional Principal Monica Hinders fought back tears along with teaching couple Mary Alice and Gary Blount, and about a dozen parents and family members of the class of 2012 graduates. Spring Creek High School Youth Offender Program (YOP) graduated its final six students June 21 from the 13-year program that will be moving to the Anchorage Pre-trial Correctional Facility..
The six inmates, wearing the traditional black caps and gowns over their orange or gray prison coveralls, turned their tassels around, and received their high school diplomas or GEDs, while two more students got post-secondary degrees from on-line courses they had taken while behind bars.
It was a sobering affair despite the cheerful cartoon-character graduation cake that the culinary apprentices had made, the punch and sandwiches, and the colorful artwork on the walls. The prison yard, with its glimmering razor-wire fence was still there. The stiff-blue uniformed corrections officers were standing at the ready, and the graduates knew that they would face yet another night, perhaps months or even years in their cells.
Still, it was an important occasion for the young men. They worked hard to accomplish something positive that made their parents, teachers and fellow inmates watching from the audience proud.
“I’m so very proud of you, please keep it up,” said Spring Creek Superintendent Craig Turnbull. “When you make good choices it becomes a habit. You’re showing everyone here in this room that you can do it, and we applaud you.”
Turnbull has been one of the innovative youth offender program’s greatest defenders over the years. Prior to 1999, the prison had been purely a “lock ‘em up facility,” he said. But he could see that the young men coming into the system had a desperate desire to learn real things, to learn about more than just the prison culture. He refused to believe the detractors who said that running a high school inside a maximum security facility was impossible.
Over the past 13 years, the unique program has grown and developed. To date it has graduated 200 students, with several taking on-line college classes afterward, and some going on to college outside upon their release. The data that the former principal collected, after several years of tracking their graduates’ lives, show that only one of three YOP graduates released had returned to prison. Nationally, the recidivism rate for released felons is two out of three, Turnbull said.
Student speaker Jacob Miller, told the gathering that he and his fellow students had struggled to learn discipline and self control while in the school, and that the staff, Mary Alice and Gary Blount, Jennifer Swander, and Principal Monica Hinders, helped steer them back to the right path whenever they strayed.
“We are not just inmates, we’re real people — human beings. And that’s how they saw us,” Miller said. “These teachers were, and will always be our friends.” Miller plans to attend AVTEC to obtain an employable job skill when released.
Timothy Swenson’s plans for release include getting an Alaska driver’s license, a car and a job. He thanked teacher Gary Blount for all of his hard work and patience.
“Gary Blount is the best science teacher I ever had,” he said. He also thanked the teachers who provided games that helped him improve his vocabulary, and sharpen his writing skills. Unlike regular high schools, the YOP teachers were always there when he needed them, which made learning less stressful, Swenson said.
“This is one of the happiest, most positive events I get to come to,” said Joe Schmidt, the Department of Corrections Commissioner. “It touches my heart.” The decision to move the program to the Anchorage Correctional Complex, a pre-trial facility for inmates of all ages, was not one that the board of corrections took lightly, he said prior to the ceremony. However, as the department “shuffles the deck,” and opens the new Goose Creek Correctional Center, it decided to return Spring Creek prison to the purpose for which it was intended originally, which is a closed, maximum security environment, and meanwhile to move the youth into a facility that has dorms of a more appropriate size.
Spring Creek’s dorms all have 64 beds, so when the YOP program had only 20 or even 30 participants, the department still had to pay for empty beds, which it can ill afford. Especially when it is paying an out-of-state contractor by the day, per prisoner, he said.
“Also, we’re trying not to infect the youthful offender dormitory with a more hardened criminal, or more long-term criminal,” Schmidt said. “We like to keep the youthful offenders isolated the best we can so they can study together, and hopefully act appropriately together and not have influence from others. Anchorage offers all of that.”
Anchorage Correctional Complex has 850 beds, and the dorms range from ones with 18 to 64 beds to several sizes in between. So depending on the size of the school population at the time, there will likely be a dorm available. And there will be fewer opportunities for them to interact with the adult prison population, as they currently do, such as when they use the gym, or get their meals.
Heidi Zemach | For The LOG
Spring Creek Class of 2012 Graduates with teachers Gary Blount and Jennifer Swanders (left) and teacher Mary Alice Blount and Principal Monica Hinders (right), and Kenai Peninsula Borough School Superintendent Steve Atwater.
In other Alaska prisons, minors charged with or convicted for a felony as adults, are typically placed in segregation units to protect them from the older prison population. This isn’t ideal, as an ACLU audit pointed out some years ago. It’s especially unfair for young men who have not even been tried yet, but who may have years to wait before their trial takes place. It means that these young men are kept in a place where other inmates are generally sent for breaking prison rules. Some of these inmates chose to attend the Spring Creek YOP program, where they could at least further their education, Schmidt said. Others say doing so, and getting good grades, might look good on their pre-sentencing report.
Parents James and Betty Sinnot, and Amos Sinnot’s younger brother and cousin came to Seward to attend his graduation. James Sinnot hadn’t expected Amos to graduate from high school. But he was happy and surprised to see the good grades on the report card that Amos sent him from the prison. “It was high, like when he was starting school. He had a real high score there, too. I’m real proud of him.”