Ecology goes behind bars
abracad, · Categories: environment, externally authored
Interview with Nalini Nadkarni
by Jason Francis
Nadkarni, founder of the Sustainability in Prisons Project, discusses the benefits of engaging prisoners in projects that research and foster sustainable living. Reproduced courtesy Share International magazine March 2013
The Sustainability in Prisons Project has been bringing science and nature into prisons since 2004. The organization conducts ecological research and conserves biodiversity by building partnerships with scientists, inmates, prison staff, students and community partners. Their focus is on reducing the environmental, economic and human costs of prisons by inspiring and teaching sustainable practices. Dr Nalini Nadkarni, the group's founder, received her PhD in forest ecology at the University of Washington and is widely recognized as an expert in the field. She currently teaches at the University of Utah. Jason Francis interviewed Dr Nadkarni for Share International.
Nalini Nadkarni
Share International: What inspired you to form the Sustainability in Prisons Project?
Nalini Nadkarni: It was not as much a concern about social justice issues as it was my selfish desire as a scientist to try to work out a complex, difficult and troubling ecological problem in the Pacific Northwest: the harvesting of mosses for the horticulture trade. People go into old growth forest and strip mosses from branches and trunks and sell them to the horticulture trade for florists to make moss baskets and put mosses in pots and so forth. The problem is that mosses perform important ecological functions in forests. They hold on to nutrients and provide nesting material for birds. I also learned in my research that they grow back only very slowly. When you remove them from the trunk or branches of a tree it can take two or three decades for them to grow back. So I became concerned about this practice because it was expanding. About 95 per cent of the mosses for the horticulture trade around the world come from old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.
Although I could not stop the practice myself, I figured that if I found out how to grow mosses or farm them the way we farm corn and beans we might be able to reduce the pressure of the wild collecting of these mosses and protect the rainforest. But I didn't have students to work with me on the project at that time. So I began thinking about alternatives, people who could help me out, people who had a lot of time and space. I thought: "Why not prisoners? They probably would like to work with mosses. They don't get to interact with nature at all. And you don't need sharp tools to work with mosses."
Prisoners are probably the most underserved group of people in the United States in terms of science education, contact with nature and their ability to participate in the scientific process. It was the combination of trying to solve an environmental problem, and at the same time engage a group of people who simply have no access to science education and no access to touching and nurturing live things, which caused me to put those two things together. That led me to start knocking on doors of state prisons in Washington state to see whether I would be able to engage their inmates in this research project that bears directly on conservation of a component of these wonderful old growth forests.
SI: How does the Moss in Prison Project relate to the Sustainability in Prisons Project?
NN: The Moss in Prison Project was the first project I did, which then grew into this much larger project called the Sustainability in Prisons Project. It started with one little moss-growing effort at one small minimum-security men's prison that was close to the college where I worked in Washington state. That project turned out to be very successful. The inmates were happy to be working with mosses - their behaviors changed, they had more social interaction, and their violent infractions went down.
The prison administrator said this is a good thing just from the standpoint of the prison, and I was happy because I was getting my moss research done. So the prison superintendent said: "Why don't you bring in more scientists and we can learn about science and do more projects?" So I began bringing in my colleagues from Evergreen State College to give a monthly lecture on various aspects of science. Some of my colleagues were involved in sustainability projects like organic gardening, bee-keeping, composting and recycling. The superintendent said: "We could put an organic garden here and do composting for it. We could raise bees here. We could start recycling." And within a year that little prison became a model of how sustainability can go on at a prison or any other institution. They ripped out the lawn and started putting in gardens. They set up lawn composting bins. They converted an old shed into a recycling center, and began doing water catchment. I brought in some graduate students from Washington State University to teach the inmates how to keep bees.
The prison was not only engaging the inmates in wholesome kinds of activities and getting them interested in education, they were also saving money: taking many fewer trips to the landfill, growing food, and making honey for their own prison table. It became a positive thing that was viewed by the prison as well as the entire Washington State Department of Corrections as an example of how a small prison could save money, increase education and be connected to the outside world in positive ways.
At that point, in 2008, we made a formal contract between the Washington State Department of Corrections and Evergreen State College to take what we had learned at this one small minimum-security prison and extend it to three other state prisons. One was an island prison, which was a maximum security state prison; one was a woman's prison; and the third was a large, 2,000-bed men's state prison in Aberdeen, Washington, with all levels of security. We began expanding what we were doing in terms of the lecture series, gardens, bee-keeping and conservation projects. Not only were we working on mosses, but I began engaging conservation agencies and nonprofits from around the state and the country to see how we could engage these inmates in the captive rearing of endangered species.
Within a year we had a program for captive protective rearing of Oregon spotted frogs, an endangered species. We started working with the endangered Checkerspot butterfly. And we began growing 17 species of endangered prairie plants for the restoration of the few remaining native prairie habitats in Washington state.
This one little moss-growing project began growing organically into sustainability projects like gardening and recycling, and also into the important activity of having inmates who are stuck away in prison contribute significantly to nationwide efforts to bring back species on the verge of extinction. This not only gives the inmates skills to use when they get out, but also a sense of contributing to society. When prisoners get out they have a very difficult time finding a job because who wants to hire a convicted felon? So this was a way of showing them that everyone can contribute to the work that needs to be done in terms of healing the planet. For that reason it has been a powerful project and continues to be an example of how science, nature, conservation and mindfulness of the Earth belong not only in universities, schools and NGOs, but also in the worst parts of our society, which are our prisons.
SI: What happens to the various plants after they mature and are ready for transplanting into the wild? Are the prisoners allowed to exit the prison grounds under supervision and relocate the plants themselves?
NN: Unfortunately, the prisoners are not allowed to do that. The prairies we are protecting and working to restore are located on land that belongs to a nearby Army base, and federal law prohibits prisoners from going on Army bases. Many military bases in the US protect some of the most pristine land and endangered species. The land has been protected from development because homes and businesses can't be built there.
Conservation partners such as the Nature Conservancy and the US Army come to the prisons and take the 300,000 plugs of endangered prairie plants the prisoners grow every year and transport them by pickup trucks to the Army base. Volunteers and staff people in the Army plant these prairie plants on the base.
You might wonder why the Army cares about these beautiful little prairie plants. The answer is that several of the plants are federally listed as endangered and threatened. If an Army base fails to keep the population of these threatened plants at certain levels, the US Department of the Interior can actually close down the base until those levels are brought back up. This is due to the Endangered Species Act that protects these threatened and endangered species.
Reducing recidivism rates
SI: Is this project providing the opportunity for training in green and agricultural jobs after the inmates are released?
NN: Part of the work involves understanding recidivism. Nationwide about 55 per cent of the inmates who are released return to prison within five years because they have committed another offense. That is an extremely high and costly number, which everyone wants to reduce. Prison administrators understand that if someone coming from prison is able to get a job there is a much lower probability that they are going to offend again and come back in.
So the prisons are interested in any sort of job training that our project might provide to the inmates. We are doing science conservation projects, which do in fact give skills to prisoners in terms of being attentive to work, taking data with pen and pencil, understanding the need to follow directions, communicating with fellow members of their team, and interacting with authority figures such as the scientists who have come to help them. All of these are soft skills that are useful in finding a job. We are also trying to provide as many workshops and job training opportunities as we can that relate to sustainability and science. We have offered workshops in gardening, composting, horticulture, anything we can think of that relates to sustainability that might show them ways they could get a job when they are released.
We want to help them find jobs that don't rely so much on applying for a standard job where they have to fill out an application that asks if they are a convicted felon - jobs like landscaping or horticulture where you don't need a college degree. You can be on a landscaping crew or start your own business - get a pickup truck and some gardening equipment and off you go. We are trying to think of immediate ways to provide employment for the men and women who get out.
We would also like to see ways where we can help them get jobs based on their science learning. I have written letters of recommendation for inmates who have been working with the frog and butterfly rearing projects in the prison. I've written to zoos and captive rearing facilities stating that these individuals have had two years of an excellent record of work rearing frogs. They can read protocol manuals, follow instructions, and understand how to test water for nitrogen, phosphorus and pH. It is still an uphill battle for them, but at least they have a leg-up in terms of getting a letter of recommendation from a professor of biology at a well-respected college to say that, "Yes, even though this man has a convicted felony on his record we have observed him being an excellent worker and is someone who can do this work on the outside as well."
Nalini Nadkarni gives lecture in prison: "This is a way of showing the prisoners that everyone can contribute to the work that needs to be done in terms of healing the planet."
SI: In order to get support for bringing similar programs into other prisons, is it a matter of changing public attitudes toward people who are incarcerated?
NN: That's a great point and is one of the reasons why I am talking with you. I have seen that through good media coverage people can come to understand that we need to re-examine the whole idea of imprisonment and incarceration.
One of the things that prison administrators have pointed out to me repeatedly is that we can talk about the Sustainability in Prisons Project by saying, "Aren't we being nice to these poor prisoners?"Â or "Aren't we being nice to the Earth by raising vegetables and rearing frogs?"Â Or we can say that this project is really about public safety, which is the mission of the Department of Corrections.
If we can bring science and an interaction with nature into prisons and shift the behavior and attitudes of these inmates who might otherwise go down pathways of anger, revenge, frustration and destruction, we are not just helping the prisoners and the Earth, we are helping public safety. They will return to society with a greater sense of responsibility and sets of skills that can get them productive jobs, and perhaps most importantly, a sense of mindfulness of the world and themselves. If they learn they can nurture a frog, a piece of moss or endangered plant, they might take that lesson and apply it to their own families and to themselves.
If you spend some time with the prisoners and talk to them about their past, most of these men and women never had anybody nurturing them. So, of course, they don't know how to take care of anything else. But many of these prisoners who haven't had a great family life when they were growing up, or had a rough time in their young adulthood, are capable of keeping a delicate little frog alive. I know that sounds sappy, but I have seen the change it makes in the men themselves. These guys make little gravestones, wooden crosses, for every single frog that dies under their care. They feel it deeply. These are people who have been sent to prison for murder and robbery and other terrible things. I think there is something transformative that happens, but you don't just have to put it in the category of making life easier for them in prison. You can explain it [by saying] we are returning these men to society in ways that will allow them to become more productive, more safe, so that they commit fewer crimes, which for society as a whole is a positive thing.
Expanding the project nationwide
SI: What Sustainability in Prison projects are you working on now?
NN: I am creating another prison project here in Utah, to understand the attitudes and knowledge of science, nature and conservation in a prison where nothing has been started already. We are creating a survey for the inmates, staff and administrators about what their attitudes are about science, nature and conservation before we give a science lecture or start a conservation project. Then we will start a series of science lectures and projects that are appropriate to Utah.
We will continue to survey the inmates, staff and administrators to see how providing access to scientific education and nature might effect their attitudes but perhaps most importantly, their view of themselves as potential science learners and contributors to conservation when they get out. Ninety per cent of the prisoners who are incarcerated today will be getting out when their sentences are over. So providing interventions and access to science, nature and conservation is important to the projects they do in prison, and also to what their attitudes and actions might be when they get out of prison.
SI: Could you talk about how your prison work in Utah and Washington is part of a network that you are creating across the country?
NN: One of the efforts we are involved in now is expanding the project to a national level. We believe that our project has matured in Washington state to the extent that we can now help prison administrators, biologists and conservationists in other states set up similar programs. We just got funding from the National Science Foundation to hold two conferences, in Washington state and in Utah, to bring people together from all around the country who have some interest in setting up a Sustainability in Prisons Project in their home state.
Each state is different in terms of the rules and regulations of the prison system as well as the universities in which the biologists work. But at least we can provide some models, templates and protocols to make it easier for them to set up a project in their own prisons and universities. From that we hope we can develop not only state action plans, but also a national action plan. We can then go to the National Science Foundation, the Bureau of Justice and other institutions and foundations that would support the spread of this very simple idea of bringing science, nature and conservation to prisons and prisoners nationwide.
For more information:Â http://blogs.evergreen.edu/sustainableprisonsÂ
See also:
Filed in: environment, externally authored
Leave a Reply