Some inmates at the California Men’s Colony are working toward becoming drug and alcohol counselors.

The Occupational Mentor Certification Program allows them to work at other adult institutions upon their release.

“It’s life-changing and it is transformative and I don’t mean to use those words loosely,” said Pierce Sherman, Occupational Mentor Certification Program Intern. “It has a profound effect on anybody that’s been through this program.”

Sherman has been in the prison system for the last 20 years after being convicted of attempted murder.

He says that among the other programs he has joined over time, he found his calling.

“We go through treatment ourselves and we're being treated for the things that will in turn treat other men, so this process of opening myself up to some of t

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