Gibson County Sheriff's Department looks to train inmates

"Its basically an advance degree, a technology degree" says Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas.

Inmates in Gibson county may soon have the opportunity to gain a technical certificate while behind bars through the R.A.M.P program.

The program will focus on teaching inmates soft skills like teamwork and equipment safety while also letting them work with some machinery.

"Instead of just hearing me talk about it and read about it they can actually put there hands on it and put it to work on this machine" according to Robert Beeler, the instructor for the course.

By offering this job training to inmates, Sheriff Thomas is hoping it will help reduce recidivism rates in Gibson county.

"They ultimately end up back in jail for not being able to satisfy the debt they own the city and county. If we can get these people back to work to where they can start earning a paycheck and paying back those debts, our recidivism rates are going to drop in half."

Sheriff Thomas says this program will give a second chance for those who made a mistake.

"The majority of people in jail nationwide aren't bad people but are people who may have made a bad decision and were caught. For those people we need to identify them find out what cause those bad choices and get them productive again."

Beeler, who has worked for the department of corrections agrees, this program will help inmates.

"I worked for the department of corrections for nine years, the word corrections is in that title but not a lot of people are being corrected. This is a way we can reach those inmates before they have those longer sentences in the department of correction in a state prison."

Other groups involved with the program say they are still finalizing the details of the program and hope to start in late May or early June with their first class.