March 17, 1997
CONTACT: Rosemary Gladden, 594-2585
SDSU criminal justice students tour state prisons and meet inmates
Some 24 SDSU criminal justice students will depart next Monday, March 24,
for a week-long tour of California's maximum security prisons. During their
trip, they will have an opportunity to talk face to face with wardens,
guards and inmates serving life terms for murder.
"The trip is designed to give students who will go into corrections
exposure to the reality that they will deal with every day," said
Paul Sutton, SDSU criminal justice professor who has been taking students
on tours of the prison system since 1982. "Some of them will work
with inmates on a supervisory level such as probation or parole officers
and others will work directly with them inside prisons. For most of the
students this will be their first look into an actual prison."
Students depart on Monday, March 24, and return on Friday, March 29.
Their itinerary includes visits to San Quentin, home of California's death
row and gas chamber; California Men's Colony, a prison with progressive
educational and vocational programs; Central California Women's Facility,
one of the largest women's prison in the world; Old Folsom, site of one
of the largest cell blocks in the world; New Folsom, one of California's
modern prisons; Soledad, a men's prison run by a female warden; and Salinas
Valley, one of California's newest maximum security prisons.
Sutton conducts similar tours four times per year. Another tour is scheduled
for June.
end
Assignment editors/reporters:
If you would like to interview Paul Sutton and students who have been on
the tour, please call Rosemary Gladden at 594-2585.