Gardening Behind Bars

With the economy in the toliet and prison populations steadily rising, going green behind bars has become more than a means to help the environment.  Prisons are steadily going green in an effort to save money.  The sustainable practices have some great side effects besides costs savings — they are giving the prisoners valuable work experience in green technologies and practices that can be used to help secure employment upon their release, they are helping to reduce the carbon footprint of these huge facilites which house hundreds of thousands of people, save resources, ensure a healthier food supply through organic farming, give the inmates something else to think about, talk about and particpate in, etc. etc.

This post will focus on the gardening projects currently being run behind bars.  This idea has really taken hold.  For more information, check out the book Doing Time in the Garden: Life Lessons through Prison Horticulure by James Jiler.  The author helped set up an organic farm at Riker’s Island.  This program really highlighted how social connections can be made and strengthened between disparately separate groups of the population — inmates and gardeners who were often students or community volunteers.

These organic farms have helped to provide fresh, nutritious produce to the facilities while reducing costs for buying food.  Rainwater collection techniques have been used with much success at various prisons to irrigate their pesticide free plants.  Composting has also become popular for these organic gardeners.  Anything from tomatos to flowers to lettuce to beans to melons to onions to carrots or fruit trees have been planted and tended by prisoners with nothing but time on their hands.  One prison, Cedar Creek in Washington, grew 8,000 pounds of organic produce last year.  They’ve even started keeping bees on site!

Helping these inmates to reconnect with nature has even more positive benefits than a reduction in carbon footprints or food budgets.  Gardening may help to rehabilitate some of these prisoners to become more productive, peaceful and law abiding members of society who can really create and help out their communities.

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