Missouri’s governor and Department of Corrections would like you to believe that there are plenty of opportunities for the incarcerated to better themselves, but these opportunities continue to decline. We have told you about the ITC program at Jefferson City Correctional Center and it’s continued lack of support (https://www.moprisonreform.org/2021/04/a-letter-from-itc-program-at-jccc.html ) and now we’ve received the following message from an incarcerated man regarding job training. We will continue to shine a light on the truth about Missouri’s prisons.
“I just found out that they do not have diesel mechanics, it seems like every class such as anger management either has to be parole board stipulated or they do not have it for whatever reason. I do not understand when they are always talking about rehabilitation. It makes it hard to rehabitate when they are taking them away or making it, to where you have to see the board to be stipulated. I believe that this defeats the whole purpose of rehabilitation, I realy wanted to take diesel mechanics before I went home and this is the only camp that offered it. The rumor is that they are going to make this whole camp level 5. so if they leave the VTS’s here that means they will be mixing level 5 inmates with level 1 inmates which they are not suppost to do. So if you want to take a VTS here you will be treated as a level 5. They recieve federal funding for these classes, even the one’s they are not teaching, they still have it down as they have it here and teaching it. I don’t think there should be any excuses for not having everything we need to return bact to society with every tool we need to enter it successfully and to help us from returning.
Another thing I believe is an issue is the parole board. When a person goes up for porole, they go in front of the judge and jury of the parol board were they grill the person over their case. If I’m not mistaken every person in prison has had their turn in court. It is more important for the prole board to grill you over your case then it is about rehabilitating the person. Another thing is that they want you to admitt to everything in your case if not then you will not get a good out date. As I said before I’ve already been infront of the judge and have either been found guilty or plead guilty. The reason they do this is to try to take away any possible apeal a person might have. Anybody that wants to go home is going to tell whatever they want to hear in order to get home. I believe this is an abuse of power and adds unnecessary stress on the person and their familys. Instead of bringing in more classes and programs to help people rehabilitate, they want to take them away and stipulate what other classes you can take and if something happens to were you cannot take the class in here then they will make you take it on the outside were it cost money.”
