Transcriber: Delia Cohen Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
This gentleman was the inmate founder of the Palo Verde College program,
and he is also a highly decorated Vietnam veteran.
Please welcome my good friend, James A. White, Jr.
(Applause) (Cheers)
Good afternoon.
I'd like you to take a few minutes and think about the future:
not about your future or your communities' but our global community's future.
Now, my model today - I'm going to use California -
but really it's prevalent globally.
And the question is this:
Why is money,
far too much money in many cases,
being spent on the temporary housing of people,
and then at some arbitrary time, they're released back into our community
to continue this same lifestyle,
which I might add is what got them incarcerated in the first place?
Now, in the year 2000, the California Department of Corrections
had 150,000+ inmates at a cost of almost 40,000 dollars a year,
and a recidivism rate of over 70%.
Now, if you look,
if we release 10,000 inmates and 7,000 come back,
and now, this year, the cost is 47,000 dollars a year,
that's 325 million plus being spent
on returning consumers to the correctional system.
Now, to me, those numbers are ultraconservative,
and I am a conservative.
And the reason is this:
Nobody comes back for a year.
They come back for three, five, ten,
25 to life for three strikers.
Now, McGill University in Montreal, Canada,
and then subsequently, the U.S. Department of Justice,
did some studies,
and what those studies pointed out was
that the education of a prisoner, while incarcerated,
had a direct bearing on their propensity
of returning to a life of crime when released.
And therefore they became returning consumers
of the correctional system.
Now, what is the cost of an education?
Higher education's expensive.
In the year 2000, in California,
an AA degree cost about 5,700 dollars.
But what if ...
What if instead of one textbook for one student,
we used one textbook for four or five students?
And what if all their tutors were their peers who had college education?
And what if all the administrative duties were done by their peers?
What if we implement all these "what ifs"?
Well, we can get the price down to around 2,500 dollars.
And in the year 2000, the California Department of Corrections
and Palo Verde College started a project called the Ironwood Project.
They took 53 inmates and moved them over to 53 students.
Now, after several semesters, everybody was surprised at the results.
So they raised, lifted, pushed people into more enrollments,
and we got up to 650 at one time.
Now, what materialized out of this was shocking.
For one, Palo Verde started offering alcohol drugs study treatment courses,
a mouthful there.
And many of their students had abuse problems,
so they enrolled to take the courses to better themselves.
But after taking ten or 12 courses, they found out they were eligible
to take a state licensing exam,
and they could become certified alcohol drug treatment specialists.
So now, they weren't only helping themselves or their peers here,
but when they returned to our community, they're going to be helping our community.
Now, another thing happened.
Many of our students were released.
They went home.
And guess what happened?
They continued their education.
See, I'm old; education's addictive.
You get a little bit, you want more.
(Laughter)
So, we have students that either have received
or are working on degrees, bachelor's degrees,
in subjects like biology, business administration,
civil engineering,
physics.
We even had one student get an MBA.
Now, the question is: is this a good program?
Is it cost-effective?
The California Department of Corrections deals with money, that's what it's about.
So, is it cost-effective?
Here are the results after they compiled all the data.
Of the first 53 students that enrolled,
52 graduated, one third with honors.
We have had numerous, numerous summa cum laude graduates.
Sitting in this room today are students with a 4.0 GPA.
(Applause)
We've had 1,288 graduates,
and in six weeks, we've got 103 more.
(Applause)
Now, if you look at the Department of Justice studies, 20% should return.
So, how many have returned?
As of July 2013
1.526% have returned to prison.
(Applause) (Cheers)
Now, you've got to understand, all this was from one seed, one little idea.
Let's try it, one seed.
I'm going to tell you that all of these students are very thankful.
They're very thankful for the opportunity,
not only to get an education beyond their thoughts that they ever would have,
but because they're allowed to change their lives with a little bit of help
and become better citizens.
Now, what does all this mean to you?
95% of those incarcerated in California
are going to return to your communities,
actually they're our communities.
6.6% of all Californians
have either been in or are in prison,
on parole, or on probation.
6.6%, that's a mighty small number.
It's only one in 15.
It's an amazing number.
So, what has my talk been about today?
Well, it's easy.
It's about planting seeds, going around planting seeds.
So,
everybody here, I'm old.
Everybody here knows this is an apple.
And everybody in this room, every one of you,
can count the seeds in an apple.
But none of you,
not in this room, not today,
none of you when you go back to your community,
nobody in the global community,
can count the apples in this seed
So, what I want you to think
is that there was a seed planted here in the desert.
And with a little bit of water, a little bit of nurturing,
it grew into a small, flourishing orchard.
But, we are in a desert in California; there's a drought going on.
So, we need a little bit more water.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
We need a little bit more nourishing,
and maybe, we can have a Bachelor's degree program here.
(Cheers) (Applause)
So, what I want all of you to do for me,
the old man on this stage,
is tomorrow,
tomorrow when you leave your home
go out and plant a seed.
Plant a seed
and imagine the infinite possibilities.
Thank you.