GREEN BAY (NBC26) — Eleven incarcerated people completed a certificate program at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. NBC 26 spoke to one of the graduates.
- Watch people who earned a diploma while serving time receive their certificates from NWTC
- Meet one graduate who hopes to continue bettering himself
- Hear why giving opportunities to people behind bars is a public safety issue
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story with additional details for the web.)
Some graduates in Thursday's ceremony at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College have spent time in prison. I'm Pari Apostolakos in Green Bay, where 11 graduates come from a correctional center in Oneida.
"I heard someone say once that the best heroes are villains that got a redemption arc," graduate Christopher Bridges said after receiving his diploma Thursday afternoon. He is one of 11 people who graduated with a certificate in industrial maintenance while serving time at the Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center in Oneida.
"I figured I had the time on my hands, so I might as well do something constructive with it," Bridges said.
He and his fellow graduates earned 15 college credits in 15 weeks. Now, the certificates they received make them eligible for jobs they can work while serving time and after they are released.
"In their final class, every single one of them got an 'A' in my class," Instructor Molly Delsart said. "Of my normal population, that never happened before."
Delsart teaches classes on how to program machines through a certain type of coding. She has been teaching students in the program since it began, and she says her greatest challenge this year was finding enough work to keep the students busy.
"It was a real boon for someone that's in this situation to be able to further their education," Bridges said.
Ray Woodruff, Re-Entry Director from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections says their responsibility is to provide space for people to change their lives.
"We know that education does that, education has been shown to reduce recidivism [the likelihood to commit another crime] after release," Woodruff said. "So, it's a public safety piece, obviously. But it's also more about giving people the opportunity to have some agency over their lives."
"We have all taken the step towards improving our future, so I'm proud to say congratulations," graduate Troy Keys said while addressing his classmates at the ceremony. "I joined this program unsure what I was signing up for, but it made sense to me to obtain this education in prison with time on my hands and [to] use this time to evaluate myself for better decision making to not return."
"We're people too," Bridges said. "I mean, granted, you know we've made some mistakes. We're trying to move past those mistakes."
Bridges says his redemption arc doesn't stop here.
"I hope to be the first person [from the program] to come back and finish out the associate [degree] at NWTC," Bridges said.
About 60 students have graduated from the program since it started five years ago. In Green Bay Pari Apostolakos NBC 26.
