Criminology & Criminal Justice
Each year Southern Oregon University’s Criminology and Criminal Justice Department coordinates a field trip to Pelican Bay Prison for exposure to a learning environment participants never forget.
Located on almost 300 acres in northwest California, Pelican Bay Prison is designed to house California’s most serious criminal offenders in a safe, secure, and disciplined institutional setting. Pelican Bay Prison opened in1989 to satisfy a need for a growing number of maximum-security inmates. Pelican Bay Prison has an approximate budget of $115 million and more than 1400 employees.
Students tour the inner most areas of the maximum security prison and spend hours learning about what the prison, a self-sufficient miniature city, does and how it functions. The sound of the large steel doors slamming shut behind them and other sights and sounds of prison life forge unforgettable memories for future criminologists and criminal-justice practitioners.
Dr. Lee Ayers; Dr. Tom Owens; Eric Guyer, Adjunct; Dr. Marny Rivera; and retired Lt. Steve Perez, Education Officer.
Southern Oregon Criminology and Criminal Justice students being given instructions before their tour of Pelican Bay Prison.
Southern Oregon Criminology and Criminal Justice students beginning tour of Pelican Bay Prison.
SHU prisoner
Pelican Bay inmates
Students learn about academic programs available to inmates such as Pre-Release, English as a Second Language, High School or GED, Adult Basic Education, and Literacy Program. Vocational programs available to inmates include but are not limited to Mill and Cabinet Work, Graphic Arts, Eyewear, Dry Cleaning, Carpentry, Auto Repair, and Building Maintenance. Still other programs available to help rehabilitate inmates include Youth Diversion, Religious, Victim Awareness, Arts in Corrections, Computers for Schools, and Community Service Crews.
At a time when virtual field trips are increasingly popular, this real-life, real-time, learning environment is made all the more dramatic and shocking when the warden explains before the tour that it is against prison policy to negotiate for the release of hostages. Without exception students participating in the Pelican Bay Prison field trip are deeply impressed and often moved by the experience.
The Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Southern Oregon University also arranges frequent field trips to Oregon state prisons and to Oregon Youth Authority facilities.
Photo and award credits for the prisoners and arial photo:
http://www.sfbappa.org/Awards/picturestory/picstory28.ex2.html
