Day-to-day life for the residents of San Quentin Rehabilitation Center might be pretty easy, however one program is impacting these inside and outdoors in a giant means.
“So, that is my cell,” stated Chase Benoit, an inmate at San Quentin. “It’s 4’4″ by 10’1. This proper right here is my bed room, my lavatory, my kitchen, my front room – all in that small area.”
It’s the place he makes his life, for now at the least, 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 stated.
But moderately than letting life go him by, he spent the final 12 months serving to carry new life to strangers exterior the jail partitions.
CBS News Bay Area met Benoit a 12 months in the past, when he grew to become one of many first individuals in San Quentin’s puppy raising program. Select-incarcerated people who’ve demonstrated a observe report of fine conduct and have handed a rigorous choice and vetting course of, elevate and prepare puppies to become service animals that nonprofit group Canine Companions will pair with individuals with disabilities totally free.
Paige Mazzoni, the CEO of Canine Companions, stated they’ve related 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 best way to changing 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 stated.
San Quentin officers see it is a helpful rehabilitation instrument for some inmates that additionally advantages the neighborhood. Benoit sees it as a method to give again to a neighborhood he took from.
“There’s no good that I can do that can make up for the hurt that I’ve completed,” he stated. “I won’t be capable of 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 great they’ve completed during the last 12 months as puppy raisers and to see their puppies off.
The males comprised the primary of what is 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 stated. “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 a number of the instructions and abilities 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 stated. “I promise you that out within the area, as handlers, that we are going to respect forevermore what it’s that you’ve completed for us.”
On stage alongside his grandson, Tuttle stated his service canine helps with day-to-day duties. But most significantly, his canine helps him really feel a reference to different individuals.
“The jail program brings lots 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 stated. “Just as a result of they’re inmates in a jail, and perhaps they’ve completed one thing horribly incorrect of their lives, that is not going to rub off on these dogs. It’s truly fairly the other.”
From what he has observed over the course of the final 12 months, this system helps his grandson develop.
“It positively has made a giant distinction for him. He sees what he’s able to doing,” Tuttle stated. “Being part of this world implies that we’re all on this collectively, and you may’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, stated the power to expertise pleasure has impressed him to wish to do extra good.
“It’s taught me quite a lot of compassion, quite a lot of consciousness,” he stated. “This program has given me quite a lot of accountability. It has taught me lots 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 stated “I wish to do extra. We’ll see what the longer term 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 once referred to as the loss of life home,” he stated. “It simply offers you some perception into what can occur if sufficient individuals put their heads collectively to try to do one thing for the higher.”
After handshakes and a second of gratitude, the bizarre however highly effective day at San Quentin got here to an in depth. 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 incredible accountability to know that what I educate her now she’s going to carry for the remainder of her life,” he stated.
Benoit is aware of that this chance is a privilege. He cannot change the previous, however by doing this, he could make the longer term higher for others, for individuals like his grandfather.
“There are so many individuals out in the neighborhood the place in case you heard my title Chase, they’d don’t have anything however unhealthy issues to say,” he stated. “But now, I do know at the least 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 individuals exterior the jail partitions can see and admire the truth that there’s good that may come from the individuals inside.
“We’re not getting any day off. We’re not getting any money for it. We’re doing this as a result of we wish to make amends,” Benoit stated. “Use us. Like, we actually don’t need something in return however to simply have the enjoyment of this canine. In return, we’ll offer you a lot extra. We’ll give it our coronary heart. We’re going to try to change as many lives as doable.”
Once they’re service animals, Canine Companions locations the dogs with individuals in want freed from cost and can observe up for all times.
