They’re the first group of incarcerated women at the prison to complete the first level of welding certification. The eight-week program starts with augmented reality welding training in a trailer retrofitted with simulation equipment. Then they move on to the real thing.
“Once you get it, it’s just like riding a bike,” Ebony Croon, one of the graduates, said.
For Croon, happiness is self-sufficiency. She wants to be able to put bread on the table and help her spouse provide for their children. She's up for parole in June 2025, and hopes to return home to Pascagoula and get a job at Ingalls Shipbuilding.
"We like working with our hands,” Croon said. “But sometimes certain traditions, you get stuck in certain habits. But we have to learn how to branch off and make our own money and be successful and be happy with ourselves as well.”
Erica Smith, the facility’s program director, has been with the department of corrections for 15 years. When she started her career, the main focus was alcohol and drug use rehabilitation, but over the years, she's seen the addition of trade and other educational services like the welding program give incarcerated people a sense of purpose.
“It not only teaches the ladies discipline, but it gives them the opportunity to see that they do not have to remain the same as they were when they entered these doors,” Smith said.
The certification the women completed is only the first of four levels. Croon hopes the prison will make the second level available to female inmates before she gets out.
