Sustainable Living has Given Prison Inmates the Possibility of a Renewed Future-

Scripps College students are making an impact in a big way, by helping to provide sustainable organic gardens for the inmates at the California Institution for Women (CIW) in Chino, CA. Adrian Hodos and her Scripps College peer, Hannah Segal, founded the Criminal Justice Network three years prior so that they may inform the community about prison life and raise awareness on the issue. Now they are working with these ladies at the correctional facility, hoping that their project will show them that there is much more to life than what they have been handed in the past. Segal came up with the idea of planting a garden with the women at CIW after reading the book Doing Time in the Garden: Life Lessons through Prison Horticulure by James Jiler. The author had great success with a similar project at New York City’s Rikers Island jail system and Segal thought it was an excellent way to encourage hope and lifelong friendships for the women at the prison. She and her colleague finally turned their goal into reality April of this year after extensive planning and generous funding from the Strauss Foundation. “I was looking for a more permanent project for the organization,” Segal says. “Something with a bigger impact.” The organic garden at the CIW is over 7,000 sq ft and has been sowed with tomatoes, squash, peppers, melons, sunflowers, onions, beans, cucumbers and fruit-bearing trees. A group of 10-12 students go to work with about 10-12 prisoners on the organic farm two times a week, swapping every week so that everyone gets the opportunity to participate. About 50 prisoners have been involved in the garden and are grateful for the opportunity. One CIW inmate says, “It’s so rewarding to watch something grow… That something you fed and watered then in turn feeds and nourishes you. The women here really need this.”

The Criminal Justice Network members are now working to bring a yard compost structure and low-water drip irrigation hose to the garden, as well as opening a lecture workshop to bring individuals from Claremont Colleges to discuss rapid climate change and eco-friendly living. The success and positive reaction from both the women at the prison and college organization members has sparked new plans for garden expansion. The Mountain Dew Reenergize Your Community campaign awarded the Prison Garden Project a $10,000 grant and some of the cash will go towards erection of a large greenhouse equipped with work benches and an irrigation system, which will help transplant 80 to 100 new fruit-bearing trees and establish a seed-saving storage system for future planting. Before the garden project was formed, the desolate clearing at the women’s correctional facility was off-limits and against the prisons rules to plant seeds of any kind. Some women would save seeds from food they were served, hoping they could grow a small covert garden, but guards would come across the area from time to time and remove whatever the ladies had planted. Segal expresses that her inspiration for the gardening project at the prison was to bring sustainable, organic food to the inmates; something that everyday people take for granted but the inmates have little access to. The gardening project has given the women the space and consent they need to grow all the fresh foods they would like, as well as some type of freedom behind otherwise constrained walls. Scripps College senior and Criminal Justice Network co-founder Adrian Hodos illustrates, “The garden is about connecting communities… These are two populations that don’t come into contact with each other enough. And now with the garden, they do.” Sustainable projects such as organic farming have raised awareness throughout prison and jail systems; as it saves money, receives energy tax incentives and promotes a healthy outlook on life for the inmates involved. Prisons like Cedar Creek Corrections Center in Washington, Indiana Department of Corrections in Indianapolis, North Carolina Department of Corrections and the Ironwood State Prison in California have also welcomed green, maintainable living. Cedar Creek supports active, renewable living by growing substantial pounds of organic vegetables every year and composting all of their food leftovers for fertilizer. Indiana Dept of Corrections has replaced old water boilers with new boilers that run on waste wood products to help lower expenses and ecological impacts. The North Carolina Department of Corrections uses chemical free cleaners and vegetable based inks throughout the facility and Ironwood State Prison has utilized solar panels to collect solar energy. These prison renewable energy projects are absolutely beneficial, in terms of encouraging biological recovery and prison inmate resurgence. If you are inspired by eco-friendly living and the important influence it has in the world around us, write a letter to your local prisons/jails/institutions to urge officials to consider switching to sustainable, renewable living for the prosperity of all and the future of the world.