Reading New Futures for Jail Inmates

Seven years ago, the Orange County Public Library wanted to find out if it should commit literacy tutors to the County Jail. It found that a startling 82% of the inmates were functionally illiterate in English.

Even worse, more than half could not write four simple sentences dictated to them.

Thus, the jail literacy program was born in 1993.

It continues today with volunteers like Barbara Noll of Costa Mesa and Joyce Crosslin of Lake Forest, who enter the jails each week to help those who have run afoul of the law.

Many who are tutored have never been able to find work because they couldn’t fill out a job application. Or couldn’t pass a test to get a driver’s license, so they drove anyway until they got caught. This is often what got them in trouble in the first place.

“My first day on the job, a jail guard told me I was wasting my time,” Noll said. “I told him if I could help just one inmate not return, it would be worth it. Well, I’ve helped a lot of them.”

Noll and Crosslin are two of 300 trained tutors busy teaching one-on-one reading throughout the county. And right now about a dozen are working in the jail system.

“We get the lowest 2%,” said Marcia Hendricks Tungate, the library’s literacy coordinator, referring to those who cannot even read well enough to take the education classes offered at the jail.

She quickly added: “But they have to want to learn. We discover pretty quickly which ones just want to break up the boredom.”

They get people like Terry Kassman of Anaheim, 39, who has gone through a life of petty crime without ever holding a steady job. He contends it’s because he never learned to read, which always left him a step behind.

“So I fell in with a narcotics crowd; they didn’t care if you could read or not,” he said.

In a recent jail stint on drug charges, Kassman was determined to learn to read and signed up. Now out on his own and in narcotics rehabilitation, he’s managed to reach a sixth-grade reading level.

But Tungate says inmates in situations like Kassman’s get an added benefit:

“What they learn is that they can learn. So it improves their self-esteem. And it’s often low self-esteem that got them in trouble.”

Inmates stay with the tutoring better than those on the outside who learn at the 27 branch libraries.

There are two built-in reasons: “They can’t escape from showing up for their sessions, and they have plenty of time on their hands to finish their homework,” said Tangela Barnes, one of the jail program coordinators.

Crosslin admits that when she signed up for jail tutoring, “I was under the impression that most people in jail were stupid.”

She’s adjusted her thinking.

“They did something stupid to get them there, but I learned most are very intelligent. They can’t read because they just fell through the cracks in the system.”

Most inmates, both men and women, are highly embarrassed about their illiteracy, Noll and Crosslin agree.

“I’m 71, and I think men in the jail like me because they don’t want to have to admit their illiteracy to someone their own age,” Noll said.

“I’m like a mother to them.”

But Noll is also a mother who insists on homework.

The tutors see the inmates twice a week for two-hour sessions, and homework is always required. The tutors don’t bring in books; they talk to the inmates and then create stories for them to learn from based on these life-experience conversations.

How successful is it? Only time will tell for people like Kassman. He still doesn’t have a job.

But Kassman also has taken an important step: He’s signed up to continue his literacy tutoring now that he’s out. That beats hanging out with the crowd he was with before. And it could just be the redemption that he needs.

Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 564-1049 or e-mail to [email protected]