DEER LODGE — Outside a window are high fences covered with razor wire. It’s the Montana State Prison, but today a group of inmates who just graduated from the Last Mile Program feel like they’ve escaped, and they have hope for their future.
“So it was like we were never in prison, we were always learning something, so it got us away from prison for, you know, six to eight hours a day,” said graduate Christopher Banda.
A ceremony was held for the second cohort to graduate from the year-long class that teaches computer coding to give inmates real-world skills once they’re released.
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“I think it gives them, one, just a sense of accomplishment and also a sense of hope because they are being sent forth with skills that are employable in today's world,” said the Department of Corrections Education Bureau Director Travis Anderson.
Graduate Charles Green added, “I feel great today. I’ve accomplished something that was really hard. I tell people when I started, told people I didn’t even know what an algorithm was. I thought it was a dancing alligator, but now I know the difference.”
For inmates like Matthew Rodriguez, the course has not only taught him a skill but also gives him a chance to make amends for the mistakes he made that got him in prison.
“It’s just magical what’s going on in here because I think it’s reforming what prisons really are. This isn’t no more of a punishment, it’s more of, hey, we’re going to rise in prison, we’re going to become the best person we possibly can be to go back into communities,” said Rodriguez.
