Posted on 06/30/2002 11:51:03 AM PDT by Tancredo Fan
Cal City prison program praised [by Mexicans]
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press June 30, 2002.
By LISA WAHLA
Valley Press Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES - An innovative educational program developed by California City prison warden Percy Pitzer won praise recently from high-level Mexican officials.
The Serving Offenders to Affect Repatriation program, operating at the private prison run by Corrections Corp. of America, is unique in its offer of basic education, job training, drug and alcohol rehabilitation and faith-based life skills classes to its inmates, officials said.
About 95% of the Cal City Correctional Center's 2,500 inmates are Mexican nationals serving time for repeat immigration violations and drug offenses. About onethird of the inmates are taking part in the educational program, with about 100 in the job-training, 170 in the drug and alcohol classes and 140 in the life-skills class, Pitzer said.
"These are people we will receive in Mexico with arms outstretched," said Juan Hernandez, a top adviser to Mexican President Vicente Fox.
Pitzer, who began the program in early 2001, said his typical inmate is in his early 30s and often has a wife and children back in Mexico.
SOAR is being lauded as a model that Corrections Corp. of America has extended to its 1,000-inmate prison in Cibola County, N.M., and will start in December at newly opened McRae Correctional Center in Georgia.
About 50,000 Mexican immigrants are in U.S. federal prisons, so SOAR could have broad ripples if other prisons follow its lead.
On Thursday, Hernandez's praise of SOAR was echoed at a Los Angeles conference by Albert Zapanta, president of the U.S.Mexico Chamber of Commerce; John D. Ferguson, president of Corrections Corp. of America; and Marta Lara, the Mexican consul general to Los Angeles.
SOAR gives "repeat offenders the opportunity to become educated, drug-free and employable ... in the communities where their families are," Ferguson said. "I think it's a win-win for the U.S. and the Mexican immigrants and their families."
The officials agreed that the inmates may have broken the law, but giving them the skills that would keep them in Mexico is better for the Mexicans and better for the American taxpayers than simply housing the inmates until their release. Recidivism among illegal immigrants is extremely high because past offenders can be jailed again as soon as they reenter the United States.
"They broke the law, they're there for a reason, but wouldn't it be better if they didn't come back?" Zapanta said.
Zapanta said he recently visited a 5,000-home development in La Paz, Baja California, that would benefit from the Mexican nationals' new job skills. Cal City inmates are being trained as carpenters, masons, electricians and more.
Corrections Corp. of America, as a private company, is "taking from their profit margin" in hiring 17 teachers for the inmates, Zapanta said.
Oh, sure...after our tax dollars have gone to supposedly educate and rehabilitate them. Keep your scum on your own side of the border, Fox and Hernandez.
California's toast if the taxpayers are willing to go along with this yet-another Fox-induced scam.
It just isn't true that Americans don't want or cannot do these jobs. Here in Florida we have lots of white Americans with blond hair and blue eyes working hard in the hot sun every day, let me tell you. A decade or two ago, they would be ALL the workers...an occasional black in N Fla...but now, some share of the workers on most outside jobs seem to be Mexicans throughout the state.
I believe if Mexico vanished tomorrow, wages might rise by something between 75 cents and two dollars per hour in USA to account for lesser abundance of labor.
That in turn would allow a massive improvement in lifestyle for US laboring people with no welfare cost, in fact welfare costs would drop significantly.
I wonder how many are in state prisons?
President Fox wants us to take especially good care of his illegals working for his drug cartels. They're the ones who bring in the big bucks after all that keep his friends filthy rich. The really hard working immigrant baling hay from 3am until 7pm isn't using drugs or much alcohol ---but they are the minority of illegals.
This group of drug addicts doesn't want to do farm work or the other kind of work Americans won't do? Why not train them to pick lettuce or something useful like that?
Imagine a Fed LEO who tells it like it is and who's on the right side of the issues. You truly are an honor to your profession and show that there is hope for our broken federal law enforcement agencies.
God bless you and keep up the outstanding work.
I think it's too late for the people's republic of kalifornia. Perhaps several million of the rest of us should line up on a major fault line with pry bars....
This is what really frost me. The bums come here and take our jobs and then double dip. We need to have a massive house cleaning and send them all back where they came from.
Do you realise what that would do to the price of EVERYTHING you buy?
That in turn would allow a massive improvement in lifestyle for US laboring people with no welfare cost, in fact welfare costs would drop significantly.
Do you know how many white and black people are on welfare?
Other than that, the jail program is typical liberal pocket lining and should be de-funded.
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