Jail Prisoners Put Computers in Kids’ Hands

Behind bars in Santa Paula, 15 inmates labored for hours to repair and piece together bits of used computer parts. In nearby Fillmore, a group of elementary school students became the first to benefit from their efforts.

A class of third-graders at San Cayetano School trooped into the school cafeteria Wednesday morning and experimented with the batch of refurbished computers sent from the Todd Road Branch Jail in Santa Paula.

“I was like, ‘Wow!’ ” said 8-year-old Noah Arnold about his experience trying out the 10 donated IBM-compatible computers. “I’ve never seen some of these computers before.”

During their first chance to use the donated computers, students used the drawing program, played the electronic version of solitaire and typed personal essays.

“I just wrote about myself,” said Daniel Gradias. “I wrote I was 7 years old and I was in third grade.”

The Detweiler Foundation, which operates a computer-to-schools program, hooked up Unocal Corp. with Ventura County jail officials. The oil company donated used computers and the inmates tweaked and pieced together the surplus computers to create working ones.

For San Cayetano, a school that used outdated Apple computers, the gift is a blessing.

“We’re elated,” said Principal Stephen Colvard. “We bought Apple II E’s with lottery money many years ago and have been trying to upgrade them, but with all the things that pull for the school money, it has been very difficult.”

Supt. Mario V. Contini and trustees Joanne King and Barbara Mayfield hoped the program could benefit Fillmore students. When they heard about the program they worked with county jail authorities to have some of the computers brought to their school.

“It gives the jail people something to use to help inmates develop skills and puts badly needed equipment in front of kids,” Contini said. “There’s a lot of mutual benefit.”

The district’s goal is to become “technologically proficient,” Contini said. The district is now wiring its schools so they can eventually be connected to the Internet.

Once the computers were sent to Fillmore, inmates--who are serving time for everything from minor assaults and robberies to nonpayment of child support--asked if the children were using the computers, where they were set up and whether all the screens were working properly, said Marcia Oshita, who administers the jail’s computer repair program.

“They really enjoy it,” she said of the inmates. “This is a privileged work assignment. It helps them pass their time away and it beats sitting around and watching TV.”