'Junk' TV out as N.J. inmates learn

Friday, August 1, 2003

By JOEL BEWLEY
Philadelphia Inquirer

In the cramped quarters of Housing Unit E at Riverfront State Prison in Camden, Alex Vega found the inspiration to become a better person.

It came not through soul-searching or reading Scriptures, but by watching TV.

"It's all about knowledge now, not just about violence anymore," said Vega, 25, a Camden resident serving a 30-year term for double homicide. "It's positive, and it's the best thing that has happened to me since I came here."

Jenny Jones, Jerry Springer, and other inmate favorites are gone for good from the TV sets in New Jersey's 14 prisons. In their place are history, health and cultural documentaries, along with self-help programs and selected cable TV shows.

The effort, apparently unique to New Jersey, is designed to use television to get inmates to think more about the world around them, where they fit in, and how they can contribute in a positive way when they are eventually set free.

It seems to have had an immediate effect, prison officials said, leading inmates such as Vega to talk about what career path he will take when he gets out. He wants to be an accountant.
"I know I can do it," Vega said.

No other state controls TV programming in prisons and uses it for education the way New Jersey does, according to Devon Brown, commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Corrections.
"It's a brilliant idea," said Richard Moran, a criminologist and sociology professor at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. "It is raising the level of their existence, and that cannot be anything but good.

"For most prisoners, their intellectual sense has been neglected. If they learn to think more deeply and learn to be more culturally aware, that is an excellent thing. You can teach parenting and other things, and also teach values that are much more consistent with living a law-abiding life."

Dubbed the Correctional Learning Network, the program began late last year, a few months after Brown was hired to run the state prison system. He had tried the idea while serving as warden of a Maryland prison in 1996 and had success.

"Jerry Springer -- that's junk. Junk!" said Brown, who has worked in corrections for nearly 30 years. "That's what they would watch if you let them, but we aren't letting them. We control what they watch. Surprisingly, they have taken it well."

Not enough has been done in New Jersey to help inmates improve their thought processes and value systems, Brown said. "We need to show them, while they are incarcerated and we have them, that there is another way - a better way - to live their lives."

Up to eight hours of programming is offered each day at times when inmates are not working or attending classes. The programs are shown in the common areas of each housing unit.
The department, which pays for the programs, contracts with a video distributor to get them. Sports and news shows also are allowed.

The programming is different at each prison and is chosen in part by inmates. Representatives from the housing units work with prison staff to create the monthly schedules, said Patty S. Friend, the department's educational services director.

"The goal is to monopolize as much of their television time as possible with educational programs," she said. "Hopefully, we will be able to make a difference in some of their lives."
It already has for some, said Abdul Abdul-ghaffar, 37, who is serving time for attempted murder and drug offenses.

"It helps me understand that life outside of prison is better than I knew it was," said Abdul-ghaffar, who hopes to some day establish a home-improvement business. "It shows me there is room for change and that I can do something positive once I leave here."

That is the true test, said Moran, the professor. He wonders whether the programming will help inmates like Abdul-ghaffar change their behavior when they reenter society.

"There are a ton of studies showing the relationship between violence on the screen and aggressiveness, with kids and adults acting out," he said. "It seems to me that the more television you watch in general, the meaner you think the world is. They have taken television and made it a positive force. At the very least, it will give them an education."

He is curious to see whether other states will try to duplicate New Jersey's system and exert greater control over what is shown to inmates.

That won't happen anytime soon in Pennsylvania because the Corrections Department has a 10-year cable contract, said Barbara Wilhelm, a department spokeswoman.

The state's 40,000 inmates can subscribe to a basic cable-TV package that offers channels such as A&E, CNN, ESPN and MTV. Premium channels are not available. Most inmates have the cable programs, Wilhelm said, and watch them in their cells on TV sets they paid for themselves.

In the federal system, cable TV is available and paid for with profits from the prison stores, where inmates shop for toiletries and other items. Movies are also shown, but administrators have discretion to pull anything deemed inappropriate, spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said.

On a recent day at Riverfront Prison, Abdul-ghaffar and Vega are seated in yellow plastic chairs at a mess hall table, circling their favorite shows on the TV schedule.

Vega is planning to check out a health show about hepatitis C, while Abdul-ghaffar is looking forward to a documentary titled Famous Wally Amos: The Cookie King.

Abdul-ghaffar said he likes to watch Trading Spaces, a program in which neighbors redecorate each other's homes.

"That show is great," he says. "It's probably my favorite."

Nearby, inmates of many races and cultures are watching a documentary on Latino heritage, which is blaring from the large-screen TV.

Inmates used to congregate around the television out of boredom, Vega said. Now it's out of interest for what's being shown.

"This is great stuff," Vega says, pointing to the TV set. "I'm Puerto Rican, and I have learned many things about my own people that I didn't know."

A recent lineup at Riverfront included The True Story of Sacco and Vanzetti, Victims Speak Out: Meeting the Perpetrator, and a biography of Bill Gates.

The Jerry Springer Show will not be missed, inmates say.

"We just don't need to see that show," Abdul-ghaffar said. "We came from all of that yelling and screaming and fighting. It's not doing us any good in here to keep it with us."

(This article has been reprinted courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer.)