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Local High School Teacher Impressed with Treatment of Detainees at Imperial Facility

Students at Desert Valley High School recently visited MTC’s Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, California.

Giovanna Wells is a teacher at the Brawley, California school.

“At MTC, we were given a tour of all the different facilities that are here on site,” she said. “The students were given opportunities to ask questions to the warden, the assistant warden. They were able to tour the medical facility, the intake facility. They were just wide-eyed and so interested.”

The students were not only shown the operation of the facility and introduced to the philosophy of MTC, they were also presented with career opportunities, as they look down the road beyond their graduation.

“A lot of us weren’t aware of all the different opportunities that are here at MTC,” explains Ms. Wells. “So, that kind of opened their eyes as well. In addition, we also take our students to Job Corps facilities which, evidently, is a part of MTC, or what started MTC.”

“We would like to thank the warden and his entire staff, the assistant warden, for letting us have this opportunity to bring our students. And ourselves, we learned a lot as well. We would like to thank them very much, and maybe visit them again next year, and the years to come; establish a relationship for our students.

“So it’s a very humane facility. I think people have a pre-conceived notion of what a detention facility is like, but [at] this facility, they want the detainees to go out and be able to start a new life. They’re not here to hold them prisoners, so to speak. The facility is very clean. There’s everything they could need here. It’s accommodating, it seems like a home away from home, for now, depending on the situation of the detainee. But we’re very pleased with the facility, just how it’s run, and how professional everybody is here as well.”