Michael DePriest, an inmate in Florida's Polk Correctional Facility, is waiting for his PRIDE training to pay dividends. While serving the final 13 months of a 12-year stretch for accessory to robbery and kidnapping, the father of two teenage children holds down an 8-to-5 job as a customer service representative. "I was kind of worried about my work and social skills when I first came up here because I had been incarcerated for 11 years," DePriest says. "They told me I was going to have to get on the phones. I said, 'On the phones? Nobody mentioned anything about being on the phones. Who do I talk to? Customers. Customers?' "I use my work experience in my personal life with conflicts that come up. Dealing with customers is like dealing with life. There's always something that's going to get you upset. If someone says, T don't want to hire an inmate' or 'You don't know what you're talking about,' you can handle
By federal law, states can keep up to 80 percent of an inmate's pay. Florida keeps 60 percent-40 percent goes to offset the cost of incarceration, another 15 percent is earmarked for victims' compensation.
that situation because you've had to deal with it here. With a lot of jobs on the compound, they just hand you a broom or a rake and tell you, 'This is your area. Just be there all day.'" Though his expendable income is limited after the required payments have been deducted, DePriest appreciates the freedom of not having to lean on family members for help. "I've done that most of my life," DePriest says. "I hate to hit them up for anything—even stamps. My daughter sends me stamps when she writes." When he leaves Polk Correctional behind, he plans to become another PRIDE success story— and make it stick. "I believe in all my heart I'm not coming back," he says. "I know that when I get out there, it's going to be one day at a time, one goal at a time. I'm not in a rush. My first goal is to be self-supporting. And I've got to get to know my kids again; they're practically grown up." CT (•nil 1999 . GEORGIA TECH
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