This is the entrance to The Hub. Prisoners who’ve been cleared on good behavior get to work here. This is where the prison’s beekeeping operation, recycling center and gardens are. (Photo by Sadie Babits)
Prisons probably aren’t the first
place you’d expect to find organic
gardens or beekeeping. But in some
prisons in western Washington, inmates
are being taught new skills and getting
involved in conservation work. As Sadie
Babits found out, inmates say they’re
restoring their own lives by helping save
native prairies and growing veggies:
Transcript
Prisons probably aren’t the first
place you’d expect to find organic
gardens or beekeeping. But in some
prisons in western Washington, inmates
are being taught new skills and getting
involved in conservation work. As Sadie
Babits found out, inmates say they’re
restoring their own lives by helping save
native prairies and growing veggies:
Stafford Creek Prison would feel like a college campus if it weren’t for the series of
heavy metal gates and the barbed wire.
(sound of mechanical gates opening)
2,000 prisoners are held at this medium security facility. A select group of them
who’ve been cleared on good behavior get to work in what’s called the Hub. It
doesn’t sound too exciting – until you spot the greenhouses.
(sound of door opening and fans)
Inside the largest greenhouse, there are hundreds of yellow plastic tubes. Three
inmates are filling these tubes with dirt. They are planting seeds to help restore
native grasses.
Toby Erheart is one of these prisoners.
“I don’t know if what we’re doing will make a huge impact on the world, but I know
it’s making a huge impact on this project. It will change the face of the prairies in
western Washington.”
This is the project’s first year. The goal is to grow 200,000 plants for the prairies.
It’s getting hot and muggy inside the greenhouse. So Inmate Jeff Harrigan heads
outside. He leans against the greenhouse as he talks about what it’s like to grow
these plants.
“It’s been a learning experience for me cause I’ve never done nothing like this on the
streets.”
Harrigan has been in and out of prison six different times.
“I’ve just learned doing other things than stealing and doing drugs makes you feel
better about yourself. I feel like I’m putting something back, something that is
saving something, ‘cause it’s saving the butterflies from what they told us.”
Harrigan says he’s never planted anything before until coming to Stafford Creek.
“And actually, it’s kind of cool cause since coming here I asked my girlfriend
something I never asked her before, what her favorite flowers were, just cause I had
started planting flowers. (laughs)”
Turns out marigolds and hens and chicks are her favorites. Two plants, Harrigan
says, that can be found around the prison. When he’s not planting native grasses,
Harrigan works in the prison’s vegetable garden.
“Right here, this is stuff that we’ve planted. There’s onions, radishes, beans.”
So far, he’s helped harvest peas, garlic and 200 pounds of zucchini. The kitchen staff
took that squash and turned into zucchini bread for the inmates.
Harrigan talks about how hard it was for him keep a job when he was outside
prison. Drugs always got in the way. Now he says he feels like he’s doing something
that matters and he hopes this experience in prison will help him when he gets out.
“Actually, it’s teaching me better work ethics too, cause I’ve never really had them
out there. I never really kept a job probably because I didn’t like it, you know.”
Harrigan says he does like gardening. He says he now knows how to germinate
seeds and how to get plants to take off – skills he says could help him get a job once
he’s back in society.
“For a person like me, who still wants to feel human and still got good parts in me,
this stuff brings you back to reality.”
He’s got another year and half to go before he’s free. Harrigan says he’s already told
his girlfriend, when he does get out, they have to plant a garden – something he
hopes will keep him from coming back to Stafford Creek.
For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.