Articles & News

June 22, 2008

Getting inmates on the right track
By JENNY MICHAEL, Bismarck Tribune

The four women walk into the tiny classroom, smiling, eager, hopeful. If not for the black-and-white Burleigh County Detention Center jumpsuits they wear, they could be mistaken for women anywhere trying to make their situations better.

The women are among the first group of inmates to begin a re-entry program at the detention center that will teach them skills to find jobs, housing and stability once they’re outside the jail walls.

“It’s going to give us resources and point us in a direction for when we get out,” said Clarissa Poeppel, an inmate who started in the program in the past week.

“It’s exciting,” added Leisa Schiebe, another inmate in the fledgling program.

Jen Rewald recently became the programs manager for the detention center. The re-entry class has been one of the first programs started, along with weekly voluntary Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Rewald has many more ideas for activities to help get inmates ready for the outside world. The ideas are geared toward giving inmates the tools they will need on the outside to keep them from reverting to the behaviors that put them in jail.

As Rewald works to help inmates improve their practical skills, Cecil Stanton has begun working with interested inmates on their spiritual needs. Stanton, the new chaplain for the detention center and a minister at Faith Center Church, visits the jail every Tuesday and listens to any inmates who want to talk.

During Sheriff Pat Heinert’s election campaign in 2006, he talked about bringing back the “detox counselor” position to the detention center. The counselor’s job was to help inmates deal with addiction and to give them resources for continuing treatment upon release. The position was eliminated by former Sheriff Steve Berg.

Heinert said the programs manager position, approved in the 2008 budget, is an extension of the old detox counselor position. Rather than work exclusively with people who have substance abuse problems, Rewald will work to develop programs to help inmates overcome a litany of problems they may be facing and will refer inmates needing assistance for substance abuse, mental health and other problems to community resources.

While the Burleigh County Detention Center does not keep statistics on how many people come back after a stay in the jail, Lt. Nick Sevart said the number of repeat visitors is “more than we’d like to see.” The 130-capacity jail usually houses around 110 to 115 inmates, he said. The detention center has to house inmates serving sentences separately from those awaiting trials and females separately from males, so the jail can be full with less than 130 inmates.

Incorporating the programs manager and chaplain into the detention center is an effort to reduce the recidivism rate of people who have been housed in the detention center, Heinert said. The programs are open to inmates serving sentences in the jail and those who are held on bond in the detention center while their cases go through the court system.

“We’re trying to open up the doors to make sure we don’t have people coming back,” Heinert said.

Rewald started with the department in February, when she went through the training necessary to work in the detention center. Last week was the first week for the re-entry program, which five women are participating in while Rewald tries to “get all the kinks out.”

The women will have homework to do, worksheets to complete and videos to watch and discuss. One of the women in the program, Marvine Dupris, looked over one DVD Rewald plans to use called “Work to live.”

“I think that’d be interesting,” Dupris said.

Many inmates don’t have Social Security cards or birth certificates and will need such documents to find employment on the outside, Rewald said. She said some may not know how to find or apply for jobs.

Rewald hopes to get Narcotics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous meetings going in the detention center. Volunteers from outside the jail have been facilitating the AA meetings, and she hopes outside groups will take on the other issues as well. Down the road, volunteers may be needed for Bible study groups, parenting groups, cognitive restructuring classes and anger management classes, she said.

“I have a lot of ideas of what I want to do and what I want to bring,” she said.

Another plan for the future, likely to be implemented in the fall, is a program where inmates could earn their GED or get information about going to college. Rewald, who will use her education degree to help tutor inmates, said the detention center hopes to work with Bismarck Public School District’s Adult Learning Center to get inmates up to speed.

Many inmates don’t know that such resources exist, Rewald said.

“They’re out there — they just don’t know where to find them,” she said.

Inmates often come into the jail without sufficient education to help them get jobs, Heinert said. Without a diploma, many can’t find work and end up reverting to the behaviors that landed them in jail.

Stanton hopes he also can play a part in inspiring inmates to make changes in their lives. In the three weeks since he began visiting the jail, he has visited around 10 inmates on Tuesdays. Anyone can talk to him, regardless of denomination or religion. His purpose is to listen to them, regardless of what they have to say or what they’ve done.

“I’m not there as a judge,” he said.

Some inmates are bored and talk to Stanton as a way to get out of their cells, but others have real issues “and they’re looking for answers,” he said.

Stanton will stay as long as inmates want to talk, which has been two or three hours so far. If that seems insufficient later, he may come more than one day a week. He wants to encourage inmates to use the detention center’s library and work toward their educations “rather than just sitting in a cell,” he said.

Some inmates already have told Stanton they plan to change their lives, get to work, go to church and avoid coming back to the detention center.

“I’ve had some tell me, ‘I will never come back here,’” he said.

Though the jail population isn’t what Stanton is accustomed to working with, he finds the work rewarding.

“I’m just trying to fulfill the Bible,” he said. “I’m just trying to do my job as a minister to reach those, and that includes those in jail.”

The women in Rewald’s re-entry group seem open to Stanton’s presence in the detention center.

“We missed you yesterday, chaplain,” one said when she saw him in the detention center’s programs room on Wednesday.

Even the people who talk to Stanton or attend Rewald’s programs in an effort to leave their cells can learn something, Rewald said. Hopefully, they’ll learn people are there to help them and believe in them, she said.

“They just need one person to keep on believing in them,” she said. “It might be that one time you help them out — it might work.”

(Reach reporter Jenny Michael at 250-8225 or jenny.michael@bismarcktribune.com.)