Erie News Now gets a rare look today, inside the women's state prison in Cambridge Springs.

SCI Cambridge Springs is housing 1,230 inmates, convicted of crimes throughout the state. It's one of two state prisons for women, in the commonwealth.

We toured much of the 40 acres of the prison, to learn more about how the prison is working to do more than just incarcerating inmates.

Nearly all of them have a job assignment, to do some type of work throughout the prison, “The researchers say that for women more than men, one of their pathways to crimes is financial dependence, so the more that we can teach them a skill where they can go  out and support themselves, the less likely they are to stumble when they go back out,” said Dr. Richard Learn,  Classification and Program Manager at SCI Cambridge Springs. “They're eager to work, sometimes because they're eager to pass their time here a little bit quicker, and other times because they just like to feel they're doing something productive for the institution and especially for themselves after they leave,” said Dr. Learn.

The optical lab at SCI Cambridge Springs has trained about 30 former inmates, as certified opticians, who are now employed in the field.

In 2017, inmates processed more than 15,000 pairs of glasses for 26 state institutions.

Erie News Now spoke with one inmate who already has a job lined up in ophthalmology when she’s done serving her sentence, “Personally I can say that jail saved my life, it's not a good situation for anyone to end up in jail, but it saved my life and now I can move forward and have a second chance.”

That same inmate is training a service dog, that will eventually go on to service people in need, “You get the puppies at 8 weeks old, you keep them and train them with their basics until 14 months.”

The dogs then go on to CPL, Canine Partners for Life, where they will get more specific training, “It's definitely a give back program, people come back that have service dogs and tell us how elated they are just to have a companion and someone who can help them, and they can be more independent,” said the inmate.

At the greenhouse, inmates are learning everything there is to know about gardening.
One inmate we spoke with plans to erect a vegetable garden in her community when she's released from prison, “So children and families can come together use it as a focal point to teach children especially about where our food comes from. So I think it's very important to do that, and I definitely plan to do that.”

But more than just vocational and educational training, the prison is addressing issues related to the inmate's particular offenses, like anger management and substance abuse issues.

Which is the goal of the prison's therapeutic community, “The majority of these women throughout the prison have come from a lot of trauma and abuse of every type, so a lot of them have not had the experience of getting an education, continuing along the way because they've gotten lost,” said Rose Tarquinio, Manager of the prison’s Drug and Alcohol Treatment Specialists program

The four to six month program teaches the inmates cognitive behavior therapy, ways to stay sober, communicate, in order to control their impulses and stay out of prison, “They come into this program and we're challenging them to think differently, to do things differently, to learn to communicate with others effectively, to hold each other accountable, which is a difficult thing to do in a state prison,” said Tarquinio.