Day-to-day life for the residents of San Quentin Rehabilitation Center may be pretty easy, however one program is impacting these inside and out of doors in an enormous approach.
“So, that is my cell,” mentioned Chase Benoit, an inmate at San Quentin. “It’s 4’4″ by 10’1. This proper right here is my bed room, my toilet, my kitchen, my front room – all in that small house.”
It’s the place he makes his life, for now a minimum of, as a result of practically 10 years in the past, he took a life.
“I dedicated a homicide. That’s why I’m in jail,” he mentioned.
But somewhat than letting life go him by, he spent the final 12 months serving to carry new life to strangers outdoors the jail partitions.
CBS News Bay Area met Benoit a 12 months in the past, when he grew to become one of many first contributors in San Quentin’s puppy raising program. Select-incarcerated people who’ve demonstrated a monitor document of excellent habits and have handed a rigorous choice and vetting course of, increase and prepare puppies to become service animals that nonprofit group Canine Companions will pair with folks with disabilities without spending a dime.
Paige Mazzoni, the CEO of Canine Companions, mentioned they’ve comparable applications with prisons throughout the nation. They’ve discovered that the dogs raised in jail settings typically have larger success charges in getting all the way in which to turning into accredited service dogs.
“More of them that come out of your fingers do succeed as service dogs than these from our regular inhabitants of puppy-raisers. You are 10% extra profitable,” she mentioned.
San Quentin officers see it is a helpful rehabilitation device for some inmates that additionally advantages the group. Benoit sees it as a option to give again to a group he took from.
“There’s no good that I can do that may make up for the hurt that I’ve performed,” he mentioned. “I won’t be capable to take it again, however I can dedicate my life to repeatedly altering and making an attempt to be a greater person.”
On a spring afternoon at San Quentin, Benoit and a number of other different inmates stood earlier than a crowd to be acknowledged for the nice they’ve performed during the last 12 months as puppy raisers and to see their puppies off.
The males comprised the primary of what’s going to be many graduating lessons of San Quentin’s puppy elevating program.
“Our mission is to vary lives by means of the facility of the human-canine bond,” Mazzoni mentioned. “We are very a lot taking a look at increasing this program not solely right here, however all through the state and, fairly frankly, all through the nation.”
On stage earlier than the gang, Benoit demonstrated among the instructions and expertise he and his friends taught his puppy, Wendell, during the last 12 months.
In the gang, watching intently, was Marv Tuttle. He is a Vietnam veteran who is aware of how a service animal can change a life, whose first service canine was jail raised, and who occurs to be Benoit’s grandfather.
“This is a distinction in somebody’s life which you could make,” he mentioned. “I promise you that out within the discipline, as handlers, that we are going to respect forevermore what it’s that you’ve got performed for us.”
On stage alongside his grandson, Tuttle mentioned his service canine helps with day-to-day duties. But most significantly, his canine helps him really feel a reference to different folks.
“The jail program brings so much to the desk, not simply in what it does for the inmates, however what it does for us as recipients of those service dogs,” he mentioned. “Just as a result of they’re inmates in a jail, and possibly they’ve performed one thing horribly incorrect of their lives, that is not going to rub off on these dogs. It’s really fairly the alternative.”
From what he has seen over the course of the final 12 months, this system helps his grandson develop.
“It positively has made an enormous distinction for him. He sees what he’s able to doing,” Tuttle mentioned. “Being part of this world signifies that we’re all on this collectively, and you’ll’t be so hung up on me, me, me. He has found, ‘I made a mistake; here is an ideal alternative to pay again and pay ahead.'”
Another program participant, Aaron Ramzy, mentioned the power to expertise pleasure has impressed him to wish to do extra good.
“It’s taught me a variety of compassion, a variety of consciousness,” he mentioned. “This program has given me a variety of duty. It has taught me so much about accountability and dealing with others.”
He feels lucky to have had the privilege to take part in a program like this whereas incarcerated.
“We’re actually breaking floor right here at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, and I’m simply actually glad to be part of the change,” he mentioned “I wish to do extra. We’ll see what the long run holds.”
Tuttle is grateful for this system’s existence — for the sake of individuals in the neighborhood who will profit from it and for the sake of the inmates who will profit from it.
“San Quentin was known as the demise home,” he mentioned. “It simply offers you some perception into what can occur if sufficient folks put their heads collectively to try to do one thing for the higher.”
After handshakes and a second of gratitude, the weird however highly effective day at San Quentin got here to a detailed. But a brand new chapter is starting for Benoit. He is ranging from scratch once more, with a brand new puppy named Margaret.
“It’s an ideal duty to know that what I train her now she’s going to carry for the remainder of her life,” he mentioned.
Benoit is aware of that this chance is a privilege. He cannot change the previous, however by doing this, he could make the long run higher for others, for folks like his grandfather.
“There are so many individuals out in the neighborhood the place when you heard my title Chase, they’d don’t have anything however unhealthy issues to say,” he mentioned. “But now, I do know a minimum of one person, the person who will obtain Wendell, once they hear the title Chase, there’s going to be good popping out of that.”
He hopes extra folks outdoors the jail partitions can see and recognize the truth that there’s good that may come from the folks inside.
“We’re not getting any day without work. We’re not getting any money for it. We’re doing this as a result of we wish to make amends,” Benoit mentioned. “Use us. Like, we actually don’t need something in return however to only have the enjoyment of this canine. In return, we’ll provide you with a lot extra. We’ll give it our coronary heart. We’re going to try to change as many lives as potential.”
Once they’re service animals, Canine Companions locations the dogs with folks in want freed from cost and can comply with up for all times.
