Federal prison camp educator presents about inmates’ release

Thursday, CSC sponsored guest speaker Kyle Roberson hosted a seminar at the Student Center. Roberson shared his planned happenstance story and his career path. His story also opened to many career opportunities that would impact not only your but also others’ futures.

The seminar had three different sessions and each lasted for an hour and a half. About 40 people stayed until the end of the first seminar.

Roberson’s seminar, title “Coming Soon to a Neighborhood Near You” focused on education in prison and what program he had in prison in order to improve inmates. He explained the name of the seminar was because the U.S. released approximately 45,000 inmates a year; therefore, there were people who just got out of prisons in surrounding areas.

He mentioned the Road to Reentry for the inmates. They had to improve nine skills: character, academic, leisure time, cognitive, daily living, career, wellness, mental health, and interpersonal communication. His prison also had a Drug Program which provided drug education to inmates. There were teachers for inmates to earn their high school diplomas by taking the GED course.

He said the most important thing to do was to keep the inmates busy; therefore, more programs are created. Inmates who join the Federal Prison Industries Program can make things out of wood, which is provided by people who lived nearby. Inmates could also earn associated degrees by entering College Education Programs. Roberson said his favorite program was the Horticulture Program in which inmates did the gardening both in and out of prison. He showed a few pictures of their work, and photos of them working with others.

His programs also create a lot of jobs opportunities for inmates when they’re released to society.

“I have been doing this for the last two years to change people’s perspective about prison,” Roberson said after the seminar. “The seminar went well and students engaged at the discussion.”

“What I took away from the seminar is how important it is to build life skills in prisons so that inmates who are close to release can go out to the society and be productive to contribute to society,” Daniel Espinosa, sophomore of Rapid City, South Dakota, said.