Why Establish a Corrections Horticulture Program?
Horticultural training can benefit a prison or prison system in many ways: • Provide a distraction for prisoners, • Provide a constructive way for prisoners to use their creative abilities while incarcerated and after release, • Provide a trained population for labor in the prison, • Provide prisons with opportunities to offer job training, • Provide training at no cost to the prisons, and • Create a system of community service within the prison. For many prisoners, completing the training program is their first educational accomplishment. Some report that because of this training they enrolled in college after leaving the prison system. The incarcerated population is growing. The total prison and jail population reached 2,258,983 by the end of 2006, representing 0.7% of the US population (Sabol, Couture, & Harrison, 2007). From 1995 to 2000, the prison population increased by 17%, while educational programming increased by only 1%. Any program that can lower recidivism is essential. D
