"Federal experiment - Prisoners learn trade in industry, plants," The Globe and Mail. March 21, 1969. Page 2.
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By RONALD LEBEL
Globe and Mail Reporter
MONTREAL - Officials of the federal penitentiary service yesterday unveiled an experiment in which young prisoners take job training courses in industrial plants.
Lionel St. Pierre, warden of the training centre for first offenders in suburban Laval, disclosed that some of his prisoners have been learning computer programming at the Canadair Ltd. aircraft plant and at the training centre under a program that began quietly last May.
The experiment proved so successful that similar 'in-and-out' job training has been launched since then at five other prisons - the Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia Penitentiaries and the Leclerc and Cowansville minimum-security institutions in Quebec.
Penitentiaries Commissioner A. J. MacLeod told a press conference that he hopes the program eventually will spread to most of the 32 federal prisons.
Canadair executives first proposed the idea last year as an attempt to correct two problem trends a serious shortage of trained computer programmers in industry and job discrimination against ex-convicts.
The Laval training centre, opened in 1952 for first offenders under 25, now has 16 young men enrolled in the Canadair computer course. A total of 25 out of the prison. population of 300 have taken the course since the start, including four parolees who have found jobs in their field.
The present instructor, identified as Ronnie, is a bilingual 25-year-old "lifer" who attended the press conference. "This course gives the inmates something to look forward to it has improved morale," he commented.
Mr. St. Pierre said the four parolees with computer jobs will earn a total of $24,000 this year instead of costing the penitentiary service $20,000. Apart from its economic impact, the program had given prisoners a healthier attitude toward society.
"The program has substantially modified the behavior of many inmates," the warden said. "One candidate deferred his parole date by three months to complete his training."
The Montreal office of Industrial Acceptance Corp. launched a similar computer science course in January for six prisoners at Cowansville, 50 miles southeast of here.
At both institutions, the students alternate between classes inside equipped with key-punch machines, manuals and programming material, and actual work with comput-ers at the outside plant. Classes run eight hours a day, seven days a week..
The prisoners visit the plant in pairs once a week to test computer programs they have developed on their own. They enter the plant on the honor system and none have tried to escape.
