State prisons are crowded with inmates lacking a basic education — Their dismal job prospects mean they’re likely to land back behind bars.
Gregory Davenport, a congenial 46-year-old in prison blues, shared with a visitor to the big state penitentiary here a common inmate’s lament — he left behind two well-educated daughters with whom he could not correspond because he could not read.
But Davenport, serving time for a burglary conviction, is one of the lucky ones. He has finally made progress in his long struggle with illiteracy, a breakthrough he described while holding one of the more sought-after prizes in California’s overburdened corrections system — a classroom seat. He had to wait a year to get into a class in a cramped trailer at the prison in Norco, the California Rehabilitation Center, but now he gets six hours a day of instruction and help with a learning disorder.