Mr. Ragsdale is in an advanced computer class, building customized computers for state agencies, and says he expects eventually "to walk out into the world with a real job," making more than $50,000 a year. It is something Mr. Ragsdale could not have dreamed of before he was sent to prison.

"The bottom line is, we want inmates practicing on the inside what works on the outside," said Steven J. Ickes, an assistant director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, "to try to undo all the bad crime- inducing habits they learned in the years before they got here."

In a sense, these new programs represent a major shift in thinking about how to run prisons — a return to the old notion of rehabilitating prisoners, the idea behind the very term "corrections" that lay at the creation of American prisons in the 19th century.

Rehabilitation was discredited and largely abandoned decades ago in most state prison systems, said Todd Clear, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

"With the huge expansion of prisons starting in the 1980's, most prison systems gave up believing they had any responsibility for changing offenders or what happened after offenders were released," Professor Clear said, adding that some academic research contributed to this by concluding that nothing could be done to reduce recidivism.

"The objective became that prisons should be just for punishment," he said, "and politicians competed to see who could make prisons more unpleasant, by taking away things like television and recreation and education classes."

But the pendulum may be swinging back again, in what prison officials like to call re-entry or transition to the community. And states like Oregon give the process a modern twist. For it was an Oregon voter referendum in 1994 mandating that prisoners work as hard — 40 hours a week — as the taxpayers who provide their upkeep that supplied the impetus for putting inmates to work. Given this mandate, prison officials called on Oregon business executives for advice about how to run prisons more productively.

And so Oregon turned from historical vocational training for low-paying jobs to comprehensive inmate training for jobs that companies have open, like telemarketing and using computers to map water and tax districts from aerial photographs. To ensure accountability, inmates are tracked by computer 24 hours a day, and are offered what amount to small monthly bonuses for good work or study. Many inmates now leave prison with a professionally printed résumé, including a record of classes passed, and letters of recommendation from prison officials.

"For guys whose lives have been way out of control, a résumé puts them back in control of their lives," Mr. Ickes said.

In Missouri, which has a similar program, Dora Schriro, director of the State Department of Corrections, sums up the new approach this way: "People ask, `How much time is enough?' But they should ask, `How do you want them when they come home?,' " because 97 percent of inmates are eventually released.

As the movement to revive rehabilitation has spread, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Washington State have also begun programs, though less comprehensive.

Texas, which has the country's second-largest prison system, with 150,000 inmates, has also made rehabilitation a central goal since 1995, said Glen Castlebury, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, with a requirement that every inmate do a full day's work. Mandatory schooling is required for inmates with less than a seventh- grade education.

Many Texas inmates still work in old-style prison jobs, like stamping license plates, and the state's program does not emphasize inmates' success on the outside as much as Oregon's does. But, Mr. Castlebury said, "What we hope is that we are teaching the work ethic."

Inmates who refuse to work are not allowed to watch television or buy items in the canteen, he said.

The Oregon program, for men and women, begins upon an inmate's arrival with a battery of tests to identify the mental, social or educational barriers the inmate may face. A detailed plan is then worked out to help the inmate overcome these troubles through literacy programs, drug treatment or job training.

"We try to be outcome-based, like a good business," Mr. Ickes said.

The 1994 measure specified that the work by inmates reduce the cost of prisons to the state government. So, for example, 16 inmates sitting like telemarketers in office cubicles are answering callers' questions to the Department of Motor Vehicles or the secretary of state's office, saving the cost of state employees.

"What makes this so phenomenal," said Mr. Ragsdale, the inmate, as he assembled a computer, "is that a few years ago a guy walking out of here had nowhere to go and no job skills, so they often ended up coming right back to prison.

"At least here they had everything they needed: food, clothes, a bed and their friends."

Now, he said, "There is a waiting list to get into the class, and when guys are accepted, they have to make a commitment to be on a team, or they are out, permanently, even for playing a computer game."

Signs already suggest that the Oregon program is working, state officials say. The percentage of inmates admitted to Oregon prisons in 2000 who were returning parolees was only 25 percent, down from 47 percent in 1995.

Inmate behavior in Oregon's 13 prisons has also improved, prison officials say. Because a disciplinary report can lead to automatic expulsion from the most coveted work assignments — like the computer program — there has been a 60 percent reduction since 1995 in major disciplinary reports, including for fighting or attempted escape.

Also, because admission to some of the best prison jobs and classes requires a high school diploma or its equivalent, Oregon's inmates are now completing G.E.D.'s after an average of only 1.5 starts, down from 8.5 starts before 1995. Over all, Oregon prisons have a higher rate of G.E.D. completion than the 17 community colleges in the state that offer the instruction, Mr. Ickes noted.

But Oregon has not yet found a way to gauge perhaps the most important measure of the success of its new program — how quickly inmates find jobs and how long they hold them. It has been difficult getting money from the State Legislature to set up a tracking system, prison officials say, though they hope to have a system in place soon.

Finding ways to ease the return to society and reduce recidivism "is the hot topic in the criminal justice system, because of the huge costs and numbers involved," said Michael Jacobson, a professor of criminology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former director of New York City's Department of Correction.

About 614,000 people will be released from state and federal prisons this year, said Allen J. Beck of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the statistical arm of the Justice Department. Within three years, based on studies he has done, Mr. Beck said, 62 percent of them will be arrested again, and 41 percent will be sent back to prison.

In California alone, Professor Jacobson said, about 70,000 people, 75 percent of the state's total number of parolees, are sent back to prison each year for parole violations, like failing drug tests, for periods averaging five and a half months. These inmates take up about 20 percent of all the state prison beds each year, he said, costing California $1 billion.

In the 1990's, when the economy was hot and tax revenue high, politicians could ignore these costs, Professor Jacobson said. But tax revenue is down, and voters want more money spent on education, he said.

"So there is a new environment for looking at how to save money on prisons," and one of the easiest ways, without having to soften popular tough sentencing laws, is to reduce recidivism, he said.

Since the prison boom began in 1980, quadrupling the number of inmates in jails and prisons to two million, the recycling of criminals through prisons has gotten worse. The percentage of inmates admitted to prison who had been there before rose to 36.4 percent in 1998, from 18 percent in 1980, Mr. Beck said.

Still, some prison guards view rehabilitation programs as taxpayer money wasted on criminals, and some labor leaders worry that inmates are taking union jobs.

But in Oregon, even some people in the tough-on-crime camp say they like the state's new approach. Steve Doell, the president of Crime Victims United of Oregon, whose 12-year-old daughter was killed walking home from a school bus stop, said:

Home - What's New - Site Map - Search Gorski's Site - Articles - Book Reviews

Mission & Vision - Training & Consultation Services - Publications - Links

Daily News Review  -  Addiction Databases  - Leading Addiction Websites

GORSKI-CENAPS Clinical Model --- Research-Based Best Practice Principles

Terry Gorski and Other Members of the GORSKI-CENAPS Team are Available To Train & Consult On Areas Related To Recovery, Relapse Prevention, & Relapse Early Intervention