- [Michelle] Tonight, giving inmates a second chance through coding.

- 75% of the folks that are involved in this program gain employment when they're released from prison, which is astounding.

- [Michelle] And cyber attacks hit Rhode Island.

- So this one was a whole other level.

- [Michelle] Then, Rhode Island officials respond to a new president with Ted Nesi.

(bright music) (bright music continues) - Good evening and welcome to "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We begin tonight with an unlikely story inside one of Rhode Island's prisons.

- Inmates are learning how to speak the language of computers by becoming coders.

They're hoping high demand for those skilled in web development and software design could lead to jobs that keep them out of prison for good.

Our contributor Steph Machado takes us inside to introduce us to some as they embark on The Last Mile.

- So call funk and pass in the idle.

- [Steph] Every day inside this medium security prison in Cranston- - [Delacruz] It expects an array.

- [Steph] A dozen inmates are learning to code.

- I expect you to give me an array and I expect you to give me a function.

- [Steph] Dennis McDonald uses JavaScript to create a game, rock, paper, scissors.

- It was pretty complicated.

- [Steph] Across the classroom, Benjamin Delacruz is often seen helping other students as they work on computers figuring out how to program websites and games.

- These skills are enough for you to be a web developer where you're just making websites, right?

If you want to take it further, you can learn more programming and algorithms and be a software developer and make software.

You know, the sky's the limit.

- [Steph] The class, which meets five days a week, is unlike any other educational program offered in prison in Rhode Island.

For one, the students have laptops which they get to take outside the classroom.

- When folks started going back to their cells with laptops, there was a little bit of panic.

What they're doing is continuing the work they were doing in the classroom at the desktop.

And so when they go back to the classroom, it syncs back up to what they were doing.

- And there's no chance they can connect to the outside world?

- Absolutely not.

- [Steph] Wayne Salisbury is the director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections.

He launched this program last spring after hearing about it from a state senator who got a call from an inmate who read about the program in a magazine.

It's called The Last Mile, a reference to the last leg of a person's incarceration and reentry into society and started in San Quentin Prison in California more than a decade ago.

Now it's offered in eight states, including Rhode Island.

- It afforded folks the opportunity to learn skills and provide training to them that is relevant in today's job market, and provides an opportunity for them to be gainfully employed upon release.

Recent statistics say that 75% of the folks that are involved in this program gain employment when they're released from prison, which is astounding.

- [Steph] The ultimate goal of the program is to end the cycle of repeat offenders.

In Rhode Island, more than 40% of inmates end up back in prison within three years.

- I was out for over 15 years before this incarceration happened.

- [Steph] Delacruz first ended up in prison for a short stint when he was 18.

For years after that, he says he struggled to land reliable work.

- It's the same cycle.

I would apply for jobs, they don't know my record yet.

You know, my resume was decent.

I would get the interview, they would love me in the interview, right?

I'd present well, I speak well, but then, you know, we have to do this background check.

That's it.

The door slams shut.

- [Steph] Eventually, he made a choice.

- I resorted to selling drugs, which is what I ended up doing.

- [Steph] He was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2021.

Initially, he started trying to teach himself how to code out of books so when the state launched The Last Mile program, he knew he wanted in.

- I was pretty quick to jump on it because I saw that as an opportunity to continue what I had started.

I kind of saw it as a sign.

- [Steph] Web developers are in high demand and can usually work remotely, potentially reducing one barrier to getting a job with a felony record.

- This is an industry that thankfully doesn't care too, too much about that.

This is, can you do the work?

You know what I mean?

Do you have these skills?

- [Steph] Do you see this as a way to prevent you or your fellow inmates from ending up back here?

- A thousand percent.

- [Steph] The class is taught remotely by instructors from The Last Mile, most of them are formerly incarcerated themselves.

When we visited back in December, it was the last class before Christmas, so the teachers surprised the students with a trivia game.

- [Instructor] History for 400.

- [Inmate] Who is Ford?

- All right.

- [Steph] Marylouise Joseph staffs the classroom as a program facilitator.

- We hope it's giving them the tools that they need to get out there and get a job, a realistic job that's going to help them support their families and allow them to stay out of prison and make something of themselves.

- [Steph] Joseph has worked in reentry for years, so she knows how hard it can be to stay on the outside once released.

- The biggest challenge is jobs, housing.

You know, those right there.

If somebody could walk out into a job and they've got a place to live, that is literally half the battle.

- Why is it so important that people get job training while they are incarcerated?

- You're setting people up for success when they get out.

And in many cases, folks may have had employment before they were incarcerated, but in some cases they don't.

They may not have the skill sets.

By not having employment, it makes the struggle even more real for them when they get out.

- And when you see people come back here, what's your first thought, we failed them?

- I think the system fails them.

And I was very naive when I assumed the acting role and I said let me fix the recidivism rate because I thought it was just the DOC.

And it's not just the DOC.

There is so much working against somebody when they get released.

So part of that is us breaking down those barriers in order to help them help themselves and not come back.

- [Steph] In Rhode Island, the recidivism rate has dropped from 51% of inmates released in 2017 returning within three years, to 44% for the inmates released in 2020.

It's too soon to know if the Last Mile Students in Rhode Island will have a lower rate, since the program just started last year.

But nationally, The Last Mile says the three year recidivism rate for its programs is only 5%.

- That has definitely given us opportunity to gain a career and hopefully that the program just keeps going forward and it could change more people's lives.

- [Steph] Dennis McDonald, who previously worked jobs in factories and for moving companies, hopes to get into web development when he gets out.

- I don't want to just let this time go to waste so while I'm here, I'm just trying to learn as much as I can and try to change my life around, basically.

- [Steph] You don't wanna end up back here?

- No.

- This is not happening again.

So I'm doing this hoping that it can put me that much further ahead so that I can have a meaningful career.

- [Steph] Delacruz is hoping to be an instructor for The Last Mile when he gets out, which could be as soon as this spring.

- Since being in this class and helping the other guys out, I've somehow stumbled upon I have a knack for teaching.

- [Steph] The 38 year old's motivation?

His two daughters, ages four and nine.

- I grew up without my dad.

So I always said that the one thing I would never do is leave my kids how he did.

And to see myself here, that's a broken promise 'cause I left them.

- [Steph] Right now, only a small number of Rhode Island's 2300 inmates have access to this program.

There's just this one classroom set up in the medium security facility, and only those who have three years or less left on their sentence can apply.

That means inmates in minimum or max can't participate, and neither can women.

- I want to be able to afford the opportunity for those that are interested as best we can, expanding that to potentially other facilities, whether it be the minimum facility or the women's facility, probably more than likely.

- I'd like it to be in every facility.

I'd like it to be offered to every individual that comes through our doors.

That's a tall order.

- [Steph] Expanding will cost money, much of which The Last Mile is willing to cover.

The nonprofit is funded by philanthropic dollars and grants, including from big tech companies.

If the program's able to expand and you had the opportunity to ask lawmakers up on Smith Hill, hey, here's why you should put money into this program and let us expand it, what would your argument be?

- I think the argument is just obvious.

You know, you lead a horse to water, right?

We all know the rest of that.

So that's my argument.

That would be my strong argument because it's obvious.

That's what we all want.

We all want peace of mind.

What gives us peace of mind?

Home and heart.

That's what gives us peace of mind.

And that's what these individuals are looking for.

And I hope people see that.

- The first group of students in Rhode Island is set to finish The Last Mile program in June.

You can read more of Steph's reporting in the Boston Globe at globe.com/ri.

Up next, in the past year, telecommunications, healthcare companies, and even the U.S. Treasury have all been victims of cyber attacks.

It's a growing problem for organizations across the United States, including here in Rhode Island.

In this segment, producer Isabella Jibilian explores how and why cybersecurity is as important as ever in the Ocean State and beyond.

- System breach.

Firewall 1.

- Oh.

We got a problem.

- [Isabella] Cyber attacks, they're often the stuff of fiction, but in Rhode Island, they've recently been a difficult reality.

- Cyber attacks are becoming more and more common across government and the private sector.

- [Isabella] In September, Providence Public Schools announced that they had been hacked by a cyber crime group called Medusa.

The group threatened to release private student and employee information online unless the school district paid a million dollar ransom.

They didn't pay and the information was leaked.

How common are attacks on schools?

- Unfortunately, very common.

- [Isabella] Douglas Alexander is the director of Rhode Island College's cybersecurity program.

- The combination of lack of time and resources for adequate security and the amount of sensitive data that they hold make them a prime target.

- [Isabella] According to the organization K12 SIX, there were more than 1600 cyber attacks on schools nationwide between 2016 and 2022.

Then it was reported in December that another cyber crime group called Brain Cipher hacked into Rhode Island's State benefits portal, which is used for programs like Medicaid and food assistance.

- So this one was a whole other level.

Even in a state as small as ours, we're still talking about hundreds of thousands of citizens' data, and that's a substantial percentage of our entire state population.

- [Isabella] Alexander says public institutions like these are more easily hacked than private corporations.

- [Alexander] Corporations can be like a submarine, right?

They're gliding stealthily underwater and they might put up one or two periscopes to connect with the outside world, so they're much more secure but schools and municipalities are like cruise ships.

They encourage people to come in, they encourage people to interact with them, and it just makes them inherently design-wise more vulnerable.

- I can't say I was surprised to see the cyber attacks.

They are, of course, unfortunate, but they're so pervasive.

- [Isabella] Former Rhode Island Congressman Jim Langevin has been working on cybersecurity for nearly two decades.

He says the field has changed a lot.

- When this all started originally, it was like your individual maybe kid hacker that was good at computers and I think we've all seen the "WarGames" movie with Matthew Broderick.

- [Computer] Shall we play a game?

- Oh.

Later.

Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.

- But as more businesses connected to the internet, the hackers started to go after those institutions.

- Cyber attack at Sony Pictures.

- The credit report company Equifax.

- Colonial Pipeline says it was hit by ransomware.

- How do people make money off of hacking a system?

- The most common way is ransomware, which means that once they gain access to a system and the system's data, they deploy a program that encrypts it, makes it inaccessible to the users of that data, which essentially holds it hostage.

- [Isabella] Imagine a hospital that can't access any patient health records or a business with no way to track inventory.

It can bring an organization to a standstill and a choice between rebuilding everything from scratch or paying up.

Many businesses do pay ransoms, but don't publicize it for fear of attracting more attacks.

According to Interpol, ransomware attacks increased by 70% in 2023.

- I believe it's because of the rise of the use of cryptocurrency.

Bad guys can get paid in cryptocurrency and then it's virtually untraceable.

- [Isabella] Besides ransoming a system, hackers can also steal personal data and sell it.

- By some estimates, a stolen credit card number on the dark web is worth about $5.

A stolen medical record, worth 75 to 100 dollars or more.

- [Isabella] It's a process that Douglas Alexander says has become even easier because of a trend called credential stuffing.

- What people don't understand is that there are about 30 billion passwords already publicly available from all the breaches that have happened in the past that you can just pull out and say, "Ah, here's someone's account that got stolen from LinkedIn.

I'm gonna try it on Gmail, I'm gonna try it on the bank."

And they can do this at scale with hundreds of millions of accounts at a time and just see what hits.

- [Isabella] But it's not just Social Security numbers and medical information that's at risk.

While in Congress, Langevin grew concerned about how hackers could attack infrastructure, like water treatment facilities, banking systems, or even electrical grids.

- I was chairing a subcommittee on the Homeland Security Committee that had jurisdiction over cybersecurity.

And I can remember my staff director coming into me one day and saying, "Boss, you've gotta get a classified briefing on a vulnerability to our critical infrastructure, particularly our electric grid."

And they begin to brief about how they found a vulnerability to our electric grid through what's called a SCADA attack.

- [Isabella] Engineers use Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, or SCADA systems, to control industrial equipment remotely.

Scientists demonstrated for Langevin what could happen if the system controlling a turbine generator, which generates electricity by spinning, was hacked.

- You see the generator operating normally, and then all of a sudden, the generator starts to kind of spin up even further, generating more energy beyond its capacity basically.

And all of a sudden, the generator starts to shutter and smoke and became inoperable.

And to me, that was the wake up call because I saw clearly how a cyber attack could actually cause physical damage.

- [Isabella] Today, he also worries about how artificial intelligence will impact security.

- There'll be advantages because AI will help us detect anomaly, threats, and cyber intrusions and attacks probably more quickly.

But also the bad guys will use artificial intelligence to their advantage too.

So things like deep fakes trick you into taking an action that you otherwise might not take.

- Do you think defense is keeping up with the pace at which attacks increase?

- No, I don't think defense keeping up with the attacks.

Laws and regulations have not caught up with technology and the technology threats and that needs to change.

- [Isabella] The former congressman has teamed up with Douglas Alexander to start a cybersecurity institute at Rhode Island College, and they're working with the state to encourage a more proactive approach to cybersecurity.

What should people be doing to protect their identities?

- I think the most important thing is to freeze your credit.

But what it does is it presents any bad actor from pretending to be you and opening an account in your name.

- [Isabella] He also recommends keeping your logins private, using multifactor authentication, varying your passwords, and being aware of common scams.

- This isn't something that is the provenance of just computer geeks, it's now for everybody to think about and learn about.

- And finally tonight on this episode of Weekly Insight, Michelle and WPRI 12's politics editor Ted Nise talk about how Rhode Island's congressional delegation has responded to President Trump's first few weeks in office.

- Ted, it's nice to see you.

The start of President Trump's second term has been jam packed as we've seen with executive orders, as well as new policies and some confusion about what those policies mean.

Certainly we've seen that play out here in Rhode Island.

- Yes, especially on this funding freeze.

As we talk today, Michelle, there's still a lot of confusion about exactly what's going on with this partial federal funding freeze.

It's tied up in court, but I'd say that has been the most chaotic initial move by the Trump administration at the local level.

- Let's turn to Rhode Island's senior senator, Senator Jack Reed, who is the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

Also the only Democrat who was granted an in-person meeting with Pete Hegseth, the president's pick to lead the Defense Department.

Despite that meeting, Senator Reed did not change his position on Hegseth.

Let's take a listen to what he had to say during the confirmation hearing.

- The secretary is expected to be a fair, nonpartisan, and responsible leader, as well as a trustworthy advocate for the men and women that he leads.

Mr. Hegseth, I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job.

- And as we know, Hegseth won confirmation after Vice President JD Vance came and cast the tie-breaking vote.

But Senator Reed's scathing criticism really caught the attention of the American people.

- Yes, 'cause it's generally out of character for Senator Reed.

Reporters, especially Washington reporters, always called him mild mannered, taciturn, soft-spoken.

You know, he's just not known as a partisan warrior who's always throwing bombs.

And he also has voted for every previous defense secretary nominee, Republican and Democratic, which also made this so unusual.

The Armed Service Committee is generally known for its bipartisan traditions and I think Reed historically has always been someone who believes in that a lot.

But I think, you know, I've covered Reed a long time.

I think fundamentally Michelle, he was saying what he thinks, he just does not believe Pete Hegseth was qualified for this job and believes it's a very important job.

So what I'm curious about now is how that will affect Reed's ability to have a working relationship with senior leadership at the Pentagon in the next couple of years.

- And Rhode Island's other US senator has also been in the news, Sheldon Whitehouse, over a confirmation hearing, this time having to do with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the President's pick to lead Health and Human Services.

And this one is interesting, especially because of Senator Whitehouse and Kennedy's personal relationship.

- Yes.

- What is that?

- They weren't roommates as some national outlets have suggested, Michelle, but they were good friends in law school, UV.

I believe Shelton Whitehouse was in Robert F. Kennedy Jr's, one of his weddings, his first one I think.

And so because of that personal relationship, there has been concern among some Democrats in Washington that Whitehouse might decide to vote for Kennedy, you know, make it a bipartisan thing.

And then Whitehouse, because he has refused to rule that out, has certainly alarmed some Democrats who don't like that idea.

- And Senator Whitehouse was asked about that at an unrelated event by reporters, let's hear what he had to say.

- We haven't been in touch for a long time.

He hasn't had his hearing yet.

I have not been inclined to telegraph my votes before somebody's even had their hearing.

So I think people need to kind of chill on that for a bit.

Let him have his hearing and then we'll go forward.

I can assure everyone that I will vote in the way that is best for Rhode Island.

- And we should know that Senator Whitehouse sounded pretty negative about Kennedy's confirmation two days later at the hearing.

- Yes.

I tend to think, Michelle, Whitehouse was looking to see was there some way here to vote for his old friend and maybe have a more constructive relationship than he might usually have with a Republican health secretary, maybe he could get some money for Rhode Island or something like that out of it.

But I think it became clear to him as soon as the public conversation began about him maybe voting for Kennedy, the backlash would just be too enormous among the Democratic base against Whitehouse, who's seen as such a reliable Democrat that I have trouble imagining him actually doing it.

- Another issue that we're watching closely, immigration.

We have seen President Trump sign a number of executive orders, as well as his first law related to illegal immigration.

Yet it remains unclear how we're gonna see that play out locally.

- Yes, because you have rhetoric coming from the Trump administration on the campaign and now they're about mass deportations, major ICE raids.

But I still think there's some question about just what that's going to look like.

And that's why there are so many questions.

I think it's led to a lot of consternation in cities in Rhode Island with high foreign-born populations, Pawtucket, Providence, Central Falls, places like that, wondering what's going to be coming.

You've certainly seen Attorney General Peter Neronha be pretty out front on this issue so far.

He joined the lawsuit from some attorneys general against the birthright citizenship executive order, and he also worked with the Education Commissioner to put out guidance in the schools about the rights of people who are in the country illegally.

So I definitely think that's gonna be one we'll be watching very closely in the coming weeks and months.

- Yeah, a lot to watch.

Thanks so much joining me, Ted.

- Good to be here.

- And that's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

Until then, please follow us on Facebook and YouTube and you can visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly, or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Goodnight.

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