Retired Staff Sgt. Louis Joseph went from teaching military intelligence in the U.S. Army to helping inmates at the Arizona State Prison in Tucson. He teaches math, reading and language to more than 20 inmate students at the prison. "I like helping," Joseph said. "I like having a hand in actually helping people succeed. When they succeed, I feel like I succeeded. And I like working with the underdogs, the people that others write off."
Inmates at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson are turning their mistakes, arrests and jail sentences into motivation to strive for a better future. A future they say is fueled by education and knowledge.
When you walk into the Fleet Management Department at the Arizona Department of Corrections’ women’s prison in Perryville, you are greeted by a somewhat unusual sight. Working on the vehicles are women wearing prison uniforms. These female inmates aren’t just assisting the full-time supervisors — they are performing diagnostics, updating work orders, and making repairs. The women, most of whom had no automotive experience before their incarceration, are learning the skills necessary to work as technicians under the ADC’s Fleet 100 program — a program created to help reduce the rate of recidivism in Arizona.
Public safety is a core value of Arizonans. It is an area that has seen vast improvements and increased efficiency through the Arizona Management System (AMS), which is Gov. Doug Ducey’s initiative to improve government by focusing on understanding “customer” needs, identifying problems, continually improving processes and measuring results. There are 42 state agencies that have all engaged in this process. The following are but a handful of examples of what is working in Arizona as it pertains to a critical function of government – public safety.