‘Great feeling’: 9 complete anti-recidivism program in Kalamazoo County

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — The first nine inmates to complete a new program that aims to keep them from returning to the Kalamazoo County Jail celebrated their graduation Tuesday.

It meant a lot for the men, who aren’t used to talking about the future.

“It’s a great feeling, man,” Rrmonnie Lewis said. “I haven’t graduated anything since eighth grade and I’ve been in and out of trouble.”

He was part of the county’s first graduating class through IGNITE, which stands for Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally Through Education.

“I learned a lot about emotional control. Your risk factors: My main thing was emotional control, man, trying to keep my composure,” Lewis explained. “I would go off impulse.”

“I learned how to emotional control and I learned how to low-risk choice and high-risk choice and how to not go back to the same cycle and not repeat the same mistakes I’ve already made,” fellow graduate Tauran Hawkins said.

The Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office is the second agency in Michigan to implement the program , which was developed in Genesee County on the other side of the state.

“The overall program plan is that this will grow outside of the jail, as well,” Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller said. “That’s why we’re blessed to have Urban Alliance and Prevention Works as two of our partners, because they are local providers of these systems.”

The goal is to keep the same men from winding up back behind bars.

“The return rate to jail, the recidivism, is much lower because the crimes aren’t being committed, because people are not involved with probation forever because there’s a probation (violation) that brings them back in the jail,” Fuller said. “They’re in programs that allow them to graduate from all of this and go on and get a job.”

The graduates hope other sheriff’s offices will see the impact the program can have.

“They help you here,” Lewis said. “They give you a different alternative of learning, man. They’re more hands on. I think everybody should try this, especially if they’re going down the wrong path.”

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