EXCLUSIVE: Could This Program Stem Surging Violence at Rikers Island?

rikers 4If the inmates attend class during the week, they have the option of attending extra sessions on the weekend where they can eventually earn certifications from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in construction, or the Department of Health in food hygiene, that can help them get jobs outside.

Francisco Ortiz, 36, from Washington Heights, who records show is facing first degree burglary charges, was skeptical at first, especially since he’s served time in prisons upstate where classes didn’t come with real-world certifications.

“At first I didn’t think it was going to be effective. But after participating and seeing what they were offering and what they really gave us, it’s a pretty good program,” Mr. Ortiz. “The most important thing I like about is that they actually certify the classes they have, in the sense that when we go home, these certificates are actually usable.”

But getting a job and keeping them are two different things, Mr. Terwiel noted, and that’s where the therapy aspect of the classes comes into play.

“Without there being some cognitive components to the program, people don’t keep the job,” he said.

Even if the actual job trainings might be more attractive than the therapy-based lessons, Mr. Ortiz said he even enjoyed that part of the program.

“They give us an incentive of learning about ourselves, you know, how to control our anger, what caused our anger problems, what are other ways to solve our issues, to talk to other people, even to deal with our families,” Mr. Ortiz said.

For Christopher Garcia, 28, who is also facing felony conspiracy charges according to city records, attending the classes is about making better choices than the ones he was making at home in the Bronx before he was incarcerated.

“It feels good to call my family over the phone and tell them I’m actually doing something, because me personally, I wasn’t doing much with myself when I was in the town, you know, being a bad boy, you know, being hot-headed, not getting a job, hanging around the streets,” Mr. Garcia said. “I wasn’t really doing much for myself.”

But the program gives him an incentive to learn—not just for the $15, but also for the chance at an OSHA license. Mr. Ortiz took a test for that certification this month, and he said he believed he passed. It was something he didn’t have when he was outside, he said.

“It gives us some place to go to where we don’t have be locked in a cell all day,” he added. “It really is working out all right.”

And then there are the books. The New York Public Library provides the students with one book to read each week as a class—book club style—and allows them to pick another book on their own.

“They approach those books like we would approach the candy concession at the local cineplex,” Mr. Chiarkas said.

As a group, last week the class was reading Standing at the Scratch Line, a historical fiction novel by Guy Johnson.

“It’s a pretty good book. You should check it out,” Mr. Garcia encouraged the Observer. “I’m really not a book reader like that, but when I started reading the book it caught my attention where I can’t even put it down at night.”

That’s welcome news to Sarah Ball, New York Public Library’s manager of correctional services.

“The number one thing we want to accomplish is we wanna get people reading and reading more than they normally would,” Ms. Ball said. “And we are certainly invested in doing our book discussion book and our reading together, but we’re also checking out other books to them.”

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