Social Mentoring Academic and Rehabilitative Training (SMART) Program

Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail

The Social Mentoring Academic and Rehabilitative Training (SMART) Program provides health treatment, drug rehabilitation, GED classes, anger management, and life skills training to gay male inmates in LA County Jail.

Description

The SMART program provides services to gay male jail inmates. These men are centrally located in the Los Angeles County Jail on the basis of a 1985 federal court order that automatically segregated gay inmates. The program’s founders, who are deputies at the jail, recognized that the recidivism rate among incarcerated gay men was higher than the general jail population, and determined that these men weren’t accessing general education and rehabilitation programs.

The program is funded by private contributions, which come in large part from members of Los Angeles’s gay community. Other organizations have assisted the program by providing jail-based services: the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District provides high school, GED, and computer classes; the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services tests inmates for sexually transmitted diseases; and the Tarzana Treatment Center provides treatment for inmates with HIV or AIDS. Program participants who are proficient in a certain area or skill are often put in charge of teaching their peers. Participants are also enrolled in a mandatory drug treatment program.

The jail-based phase of the program lasts 10 weeks. SMART staff also help connect participants with employers after release by reaching-out to organizations that oppose homophobia and prejudice towards people with criminal records.