Paige Zorn stands outside one August day near the low-slung building that holds the classroom where she’s learning about manufacturing. Zorn, 24, has already dropped off her infant, Zaylin, at day care. Now, as she prepares to finish her pre-apprenticeship program, Zorn is describing her chances at a career in manufacturing.
It could be a scene with any young mother in America working out the big moments of her future. But Zorn’s classroom, the day care – and much of her world on this day – dwells behind the layered fencing and razor wire of the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor.
Raised in Wyoming coal country in a town of 1,800 on the edge of a national grasslands, Zorn described herself as being outgoing and good at math as a youth. But she fell into drugs through people she met there before coming to Washington five years ago. By the time she wound up in prison, Zorn describes being on the streets around Tacoma living what she called the drug life, which led to charges that included robbery in the second degree.
