Angels for gay inmates: thanks to two straight deputies, gay inmates in the L.A. County jail have a chance to get an education and learn how to stay out of prison.

A gay man who was arrested and taken to the Los Angeles County jail in decades past would have probably been thrown in with other gay prisoners in what was known as the "queens' tank." There were widespread reports in the 1970s of gay men being beaten, raped, and locked away in dingy isolation in "the hole" as well as countless complaints of prison guards soliciting sex. Some guards routinely threatened the safety of prisoners. For gay felons the jail became a notorious cycle--after release most of them would return within a few months to suffer the same trauma again.

That all seems like a bad dream to current prison officials, who are now five years into a groundbreaking program geared toward reforming gay prisoners. It has been so successful, in fact, that corrections officials from as far away as Atlanta, New York, and the United Kingdom have inquired about it. None have yet duplicated it.

Inmates in Los Angeles County's K-11 ward can enroll in the Social Mentoring Academic and Rehabilitative Training program, an educational service to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered prisoners. And they can get support from straight sheriff's deputies Randy Bell and Bart Lanni, who envisioned SMART when they realized that gay inmates were returning to prison at a higher-than-average rate. In the five years since SMART's inception the recidivism rate among participants has plummeted from 94% to 30%, while the rate for straight prisoners remains approximately 65%. "I see education as a tool to self-acceptance," says Los Angeles County sheriff Lee Baca, pointing out that self-esteem issues, when combined with drug use or homelessness, can lead to criminal activity. "[But] once a person does something as significant as getting a high school diploma, they know they can do productive things. I see this as crime prevention."

When Vivianna Hernandez, a transgendered recovering drug addict who served time in the county jail for prostitution, found herself back on the outside three years ago, broke and thinking about turning tricks, she called Bell for help. Hernandez met Bell when she enrolled in SMART, and she knew he understood. "I was one of those throw-away children from the 1960s," says Hernandez, who has been incarcerated more than 20 times for prostitution and other minor offenses. "I came to L.A. in 1970 because I wanted to pursue becoming a transgendered woman. The first time I went to county jail I was 14 years old."

SMART offers gay prisoners classes ranging from anger management to preparatory instruction for the General Educational Development tests, a series of exams adults may take to earn high school--equivalency diplomas. The program also includes drug rehabilitation services and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. "This program is clearly unique," says Jackie Walker of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project. "There's no other [rehabilitation] program I know of that focuses on gay prisoners."

Unlike the "queens' tank" of long ago, Los Angeles County's current segregation facility is meant to aid incarcerated gays who were routinely victimized by other prisoners, but classification officers Bell and Lanni realized that the same men kept returning to prison. "We were failing here," says Lanni, 46, an officer for 21 years. "And there wasn't any money, so we decided to do something [by] partnering with the community."

The deputies enlisted the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in Southern California, which already had a contract with the county to teach high school courses to inmates, and before long K-11 inmates could register for dedicated classes. "They've got to show us they're serious about being here, or they're gone," says Bell, 50, a bulldozer of a man who happens to he a former teacher and is known to rustle inmates out of their bunks to attend class. "And when they commit they keep each other in line, and it changes the whole environment."

Approximately 300 inmates are currently housed in K-11, 149 of whom are enrolled in SMART. They spend their days studying in a converted storage room, outfitted with desks and computers through donations from gay individuals and organizations. And the quarters for SMART students are generally calmer--with jokes and laughter more common than shouting matches--compared with those for the rest of the inmates.

"Education provides opportunities for incarcerated folks who in many cases lack job experience and other skills that are useful," says Peter Leone, director of the National Center on Education, Disability, and Juvenile Justice and an expert on education in correctional facilities. With multiple studies demonstrating the positive effects of education in correctional settings, many question wily similar programs are slow in coming. "I think it's that whole mentality of looking at prisoners as the 'others' [who are] going to be put away," says the ACLU's Walker, who adds, "[but] 80% of these folks return to the community." Lanni and Bell acknowledge that applying the SMART model to a larger facility requires greater resources and internal support, but ultimately, they say, change is about attitude. "It's knowing that these guys can do it, and not going soft on them but letting them know you support them," Bell explains.

And that support needs to extend beyond prison walls, Bell adds. When Hernandez called that night two years ago, Bell talked her through her crisis before connecting her with outside assistance. Hernandez, 46, now works at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center's Anti-Violence Project. She's 18 units away from earning her paralegal certificate and associate in arts degree, and she celebrated three years of sobriety in April. "I've got angels looking over me," she says. "Angels."

Andreoli also writes for Los Angeles Confidential, Instinct, and Playboy TV.