By PAUL LAROCCO, The Press-Enterprise

DEVORE - On the outside, David Hill is a crane operator and budding tattoo artist with a surrealist bent.

On the inside, he might have just been another guy with an anger problem and assault conviction -- had it not been for a little extra intervention.

"They exposed me to a lot of different coping skills," the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center inmate said of his instructors in the jail's increasingly recognized education program, Inroads. "You don't realize it, but maybe you're not communicating, you feel helpless, so you lash out."

Instead of simply serving out his seven-month sentence at the San Bernardino County sheriff's Devore jail, Hill, 38, spends most of his days in a classroom or a bakery, learning skills from anger management to cake decorating.

He's one of about 800 county jail inmates enrolled in the six-hour-a-day Inroads, which stands for Inmate Rehabilitation through Occupational and Academic Development Systems.

The program has been around for 10 years, but in the past several months it has been recognized as something of a model for re-entry training.

In May, state corrections officials cited Inroads after announcing a plan to open several re-entry facilities, while representatives from San Diego and Los Angeles counties recently visited to take notes.

"It's a feather in our cap," said Miriam Gomez, Inroads' program coordinator. "What makes us different is we're well-rounded. It's vocational, it's educational -- there are all types."

In the past, an inmate serving a county jail sentence would be offered the usual auto body or landscaping training and GED equivalency courses.

But with Inroads, they have a chance to work in a print shop -- perhaps helping them get work at a copy center -- a bakery or a greenhouse behind bars, while simultaneously taking parenting, cognitive skills and literacy classes.

Connie Hensley teaches parenting and anger management to female Glen Helen inmates. She's one of several dozen Chaffey College instructors who contract with the jail to work for Inroads.

"A lot of them think that when their child reaches a certain age, they can stop parenting," Hensley said. "We teach them that there's no age limit, and provide the tools for better communication."

Inside the jail's bakery one recent morning, inmates transferred cakes from commercial-size ovens to cooling trays.

Hill said he's appreciated the chance to show his artistic side: He recently decorated a Bigfoot-themed cake for a top sheriff's administrator.

Next to him was Jesse Davis, a 26-year-old Twentynine Palms resident serving a sentence for a burglary conviction.

While Davis also appreciates the bakery training, it was the cognitive skills classes that he thinks will mean the most upon his release.

"A lot of time I was just clamped up and not feeling right. The classes helped me think before I act," Davis said. "Usually I'd be lost without asking for help. I honest-to-God feel enlightened."

Reach Paul LaRocco at 909-806-3064 or plarocco@PE.com