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Calipatria State Prison inmates discuss their experiences with Calipatria High School students Wednesday. (CHELCEY ADAMI PHOTO / January 16, 2013) |
CALIPATRIA — Students learned valuable life lessons far from their usual classrooms as they visited Calipatria State Prison on Wednesday and heard from inmates about how they ended up there.
Inmate Robert Hoffstot is serving a sentence of 27 years to life for first-degree murder and said he enjoys the chance to tell students that they can be who they want to be.
“It’s taken me 10 years in prison to figure that out,” he said. “It’s my way of giving back to society after I took from it, after I took a human life.”
He also advised Calipatria High School students visiting Wednesday to “help each other be good influences and look out for each other.”
The Calipatria State Prison Straight Life Program is designed to use the prison as a way to educate youths about the realities of prison life in an effort to deter them from criminal behavior.
Inmates who participate must be disciplinary behavior-free and can’t be convicted child molesters or rapists. Participating students similarly can’t be on probation or in a juvenile detention program.
Inmates discussed their lives previous to incarceration, the crimes they committed, and the terms of the sentences they’re serving with the students.
The students then toured a cell, housing unit, saw the weapons prison staff use and ate a meal at the prison.
Calipatria Prison Lt. Jorge Santana said the prison has had students visit from as far as San Diego and Los Angeles but haven’t seen as many local schools take advantage of the program as it would like.
“The prison is right here in your backyard,” he told the students. “You might as well look at it as a possible career but definitely not as a residence.”
Calipatria High senior Daniel Zambrano listened attentively as the inmates provided insight into their lives while incarcerated.
“It’s a positive program. It really changed my point of view. Hollywood depicts prison as an almost glamorous place, but it’s all sadness here,” he said. “They all have families and all of them haven’t seen them in a long time. It’s very different than how it’s depicted.”
Some of the students such as Calipatria senior Yessenia Beltran said they know people already in prison and don’t want to end up the same way.
“I think (the visit was) awesome. I learned a lot,” she said. “It just motivates me to do better for my two daughters and not to go down the wrong path, and if I am, to break the chain of the cycle I’m in.”
Inmate Delaney Franklin is serving two life sentences and reminded the students that the people who may be leading them toward bad decisions don’t stick around once you’re locked up.
“These people you think are your homeboys or homegirls, they won’t be there. The only people who will be there are your real family,” he said. “It’s not about being down and being dumb but about being you.”
The students appeared visibly moved by what some of the inmates had to say, and both the inmates and students respectfully thanked each other at the end of the day.
“When you’re hanging out later, remember that cell, because some of us have been here a long time and some of us will die here in these cells,” Franklin said. “This is our way of making amends to society, to give back. It’s different if you didn’t know, but now you know. If you make the wrong decision, you’ll wind up in prison or dead.”
Staff Writer Chelcey Adami can be reached at 760-337-3452 or cadami@ivpressonline.com
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