This article is reprinted with permission from The Detroit News
By Sheriff Christopher R. Swanson
Every day, more than 2 million people are behind bars in the United States, giving us one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Now, a Harvard University study has drawn attention to a program we initiated in Genesee County, Michigan, that is reducing recidivism and lessening the chaos inside our walls.
More than 600,000 inmates are being held in local jails like ours in Flint, Michigan, where they are awaiting trial or serving sentences of a year or less. They pass the hours in suffocating monotony, often filling the time getting into fights, assaulting corrections officers and coming up with new schemes to perfect their crimes.
Small wonder that nationwide, one in four inmates winds up back in jail within a year of release.
We can do better: things don’t have to be this way.
Our new program is changing the culture at our jail. It is demonstrably improving inmate relations with corrections officers and giving them useful job skills — all for very little money.
We call the new program IGNITE, Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally Through Education. Its mission is to use inmates’ time behind bars productively, learning job skills and work habits that will keep them out of jail in the years ahead — and, in the process, making jails (and the larger community) safer.
Since 2020, inmates at our Genesee County jail spend two hours each day, five days a week, in coursework that has been specifically designed for them. Some study to achieve their GED, while others earn certifications in food handling, commercial driving, masonry and welding training, among many other options.
It wouldn’t happen without the support and contributions from our local community. For instance, our Teamsters Local helped sponsor the commercial driver’s license program. Nurses from AFSCME Local 875 set up an emergency medical training course.
The rapper Jelly Roll saw IGNITE in action and helped us develop “The Jelly Roll Jailhouse Music Studio,” funded in part by a $15,000 donation from the United Auto Workers. The in-house recording studio teaches songwriting, production, guitar lessons and recording — all part of music therapy, using music to redirect your life, reconnect with loved ones and resolve anger.
Author Mama Love Hardin, who wrote the New York Times bestseller “The Many Lives of Mama Love,” slid from soccer mom to opioid addict, was jailed for identity theft and fought to recovery. She brought her “Gemma Project” to the jail, helping female inmates cope with separation from their young children.
Over 2,700 inmates have participated in IGNITE, but we keep costs to a minimum. We converted the jail dayroom into a large classroom that is now used by different groups of participants at varying times of the day. Initial staffing consisted of just two deputies who oversaw operations and a GED teacher from the nearby Mt. Morris Consolidated Schools who served as a circulating educator.
Online learning is conducted using Chromebooks, which also generate operating funds for the program: inmates can rent them during off-hours using money in their commissary accounts to access approved sites.
The researchers from Harvard University found that one month of IGNITE reduces weekly jail misconduct by 49% and 1-year recidivism by 23%. The end result is that the social cost of crime is reduced by $5,600 per person.
Participating inmates gained, on average, a full grade level in math and reading. More importantly, the Harvard study confirmed that IGNITE has cultivated a positive self-perception among the participants. They emerge with a mindset shift that promises to set them on a positive trajectory and makes jails, correctional officers and the local community safer.
One young man, accepting his GED — the first time he had ever been acknowledged for any accomplishment at all — said that “now I feel like I can do anything.”
As IGNITE racked up successes, others took notice. The program has been adopted as a national initiative of the National Sheriffs’ Association and already, 17 jails in 13 states have adopted it, with more expected to do so before the end of the year.
The Harvard team found something else: that IGNITE has transformed the entire culture of the Genesee County Jail. One deputy observed that IGNITE “really humanizes people, both the inmate population and the deputy population.”
The real story of IGNITE cannot be quantified with numbers. It’s about more than a free education. It’s about giving inmates pride where there is no pride and hope where there is no hope.
About the author
Sheriff Christopher R. Swanson is Sheriff of Genesee County (Flint) Michigan.
NEXT: ‘We got their 6': Ga. sheriff launches program to help incarcerated veterans rebuild their lives