Inside the only college class in Texas to help prepare inmates for life after prison

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HUNTSVILLE — Calvin Green paced around the table again and again.

Green was reenacting his response to getting his first smartphone after nearly 26 years in prison for a group of inmates at the John M. Wynne Unit in Huntsville.

“I was so scared. … The phone rings. I don't know how to click open. I don’t know how,” he said. “I was going to literally take this phone and smash it because I was so frustrated.”

Alone in the living room of his first apartment after leaving prison, Green said he played Fred Hammond worship music and walked in circles for an hour.

Green turned back to his students to explain, his hands tucked in his pockets. “In my mind —”

One student nodded; he already understood. “You’re in your cell,” the student said.

“ — I'm in my cell,” Green repeated back. In that moment of peak anxiety, he said, he told himself, “I'm good, I'm good,” until he calmed down.

Green told the story as part of a class this summer to prepare inmates to encounter technology before they are released. But the lesson wasn’t just about that. It was about the barriers that incarcerated Texans face when they reenter society and how they can cope with them.

Green, a reentry specialist at Baytown-based Lee College, leads the only community college class in the state that helps prepare incarcerated Texans for life after prison. Over six weeks, students in the class will talk about the effects of prison on their mental health, set tangible goals for life after they leave and learn how to find employment.

“We do real talk,” Green said. “What you say in this classroom changes the trajectory of their future.”

A class in demand 

On a desk Green shares with other reentry specialists sits a two-inch stack of papers with requests from inmates wanting to enroll in the school’s reentry course.

“Would you allow me to start this class immediately. I really want to help to get my life back on track for reentry to society,” one inmate, Mark Thompson, wrote in neat cursive.

More than 250 people were on the waitlist this month alone across the nine prison units that Lee College services, nearly all of which circle the town of Huntsville. Inmates in Texas’ other prison units want in, too: Many make requests to transfer to a unit where they can take the class.

For 365 days a year, Thompson and the nearly 140,000 inmates in Texas follow a regimented timetable for when to sleep, eat and work. They have little contact with the world beyond the prison walls. Texas prisons restrict access to the internet and libraries, limiting how much research inmates can do about the jobs they want to pursue when they finish their sentences, school programs they might want to enroll in or the housing they will need.

When incarcerated people leave prison, the transition is often daunting. Many will see employers and landlords turn down their applications because of their criminal record. Others will have to navigate strained family relationships.

Reentry programs aim to help prisoners make positive life choices during the transition. Research shows these programs can reduce recidivism and help former inmates join the workforce. The classes’ structured group settings can also help them create social networks and find mentors at a time when many will struggle to rebuild relationships or start new ones.

Funding for reentry services has increased in recent years, signaling support for these kinds of programs. Texas lawmakers in 2019 set aside $500,000 for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the city of Houston to help prisoners with the transition, for example. And last year, the U.S. Department of Education reinstated federal Pell Grants for incarcerated students, giving them an extra hand to pay for college and allowing schools to play a larger role in supporting prisoners when they’re released.

Community colleges are often best positioned to run reentry programs inside prisons since many of them already offer degrees to incarcerated people and can take advantage of the Pell Grant. But besides them, the Windham School District, which helps inmates earn their high school equivalency, or GED, offers its own programming to help inmates develop life skills and cognitive behavior skills they will need when they get out. TDCJ also has four dorms dedicated to providing personalized help securing housing and employment for those that are within 180 days from release, according to an agency spokesperson.

"From courses targeting career readiness in high-demand fields, dorms dedicated to reentry and connections with community resources, people are returning home from incarceration equipped to succeed as members of our Texas communities," the TDCJ spokesperson said.

Texans who were or are currently incarcerated told the Tribune that comprehensive reentry support is bare bones beyond the Lee College class, though there are plans to expand it. The school has proposed teaming up with the TDCJ to launch a pilot project that would deliver podcasts and videos with content from its reentry classes directly to tablets that inmates can use.

When Roderick Jackson was in prison, he got little to no support planning his life back in society. TDCJ assigns reentry case mangers to inmates about to get out. But the conversations Jackson had with his reentry case managers were limited to when he would be released and how he was expected to meet with his parole officer.

“It wasn't anything about, ‘These are jobs you can look at; if you're thinking about school, these are the scholarships that you can apply for.’ It was none of that,” said Jackson, who is now studying to become an attorney for incarcerated people. “From what I experienced, there were none, absolutely none, just nothing.”

Practical steps

Nearly all the students in Green’s class are close to leaving prison. Many have a date set for their release or are scheduled to meet with the parole board to ask for an early release.

Most of them completed an associate’s degree with Lee College during their incarceration. Green told them they’re already a step ahead of where he was when he left prison.

“I spent too much time playing dominoes, too much time lifting weights. You can’t tell now,” Green joked. “Education, certifications. Those are the ingredients of a solid foundation.”

In Green’s class, the students learn about some of the things they can do while they are still in prison to set themselves up for success. Find clerical jobs, Green tells them, which will give them a chance to get familiar with computers and keyboards, tools they will likely need to use when they get out. He also reminds them to look for flyers in the parole office about resources and benefits, such as free cell phones and food stamps.

When these students leave Huntsville, they’ll scatter across the state to rebuild their lives. Some will go back to the towns their families live in. Others will choose big cities to get a fresh start. Wherever they settle, there’s help out there, Green said. The class gives them information about where to look.

Texas Workforce Solutions has regional satellite offices that can connect them to local employers. Those who are leaving prison with little support from family members and nowhere to stay can find transitional housing in the state’s larger cities.

“This programming is to give people the hope to continue, to give them the tools that they need, said Tracy Williams, Lee College’s director of reentry services. “Batman, he's got that utility belt. Well, our students have those different tools where they can pull something out of there that can help them be successful in society.”

A mental test 

I often feel tense and jittery: Strongly Agree.

Sometimes things look pretty bleak and hopeless to me: Strongly Agree.

My first reaction is to trust people: Strongly Disagree.

Those are common answers students will give to a personality test Lee College reentry specialist Michelle Banewski gives them during the class’ first activity. The test measured students’ emotional stability in prison, which the instructor used to gauge the emotional and psychological hurdles they'll likely face when they leave.

Anxiety, depression and lack of trust are often high among incarcerated students, Banewski said.

“They’re in survival mode.” she said. “They’ll have to rebuild those parts of their personality.”

Research shows the longer an inmate is incarcerated, the more damaging it can be to their mental health. People experience painful conditions while in prison and when they leave, many of them experience symptoms that resemble post-traumatic stress disorder, such as nightmares, dissociative events, crippling anxiety and substance abuse.

“We are exposed to things that most people can only imagine seeing on the internet. So it can affect your psychological development,” said Rudy Resendez, a student in the class.

The psychological distress that persists after prison can spiral into social isolation and make it difficult for former inmates to find and maintain a job, which then can feed into a cycle of poverty, social marginalization and recidivism.

Talking about the mental health challenges they may experience before they leave prison can encourage them to get help — and keep them from coming back. The recidivism rates of formerly incarcerated people who have participated in Lee College programs was about 11%, according to 2020 data from the school, compared to the state’s overall rate of about 14% within three years of release.

In the seven years Resendez has been in prison, he has taken business classes with the goal of opening his own business when he gets out. He’s also gotten certified in welding.

Many of his family members have been incarcerated at one point in their lives. He’s determined to get on a different path and not end back up in prison. It’s about breaking that cycle for his children, he said.

“I'm trying to do everything in my power to make sure that I do not have to be in that spot,” Resendez said.