The Use of Prison Gardens as a Model for Corrections

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Table of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Relevant Facts Synopsis
The Major Ethical Issues
Recommendations for Policy Modification Using Prison Gardens
Modification Rationale
Conclusion
References

Abstract

Many believe that disconnecting offenders from society and subjecting them to severe punishment is the best way to curb crimes. America is per excellence of such a culture and uses force and resources it does not have to run its overpopulated, biased, and inhumane correction facilities. Currently, the nation’s prison population exceeds the number of people in some countries, which leads to increased expenditure on corrections. Insensitive criminal justice policies, such as the mandatory minimum sentencing terms associated with drug offenses, are to blame for the present condition. As they are currently, the correction facilities in the U.S. promote social wars and discomfort instead of peace. Introducing the prison garden program offers a better way of dealing with offenders. The new system promises to reduce recidivism rates, make the correction sector sustainable, and make mental health challenges among inmates a thing of the past, among other benefits.

Introduction

The old-school mentality that is disconnecting offenders from the other society members and subjecting them to severe punishment is the best way to handle criminals is highly botched. Currently, America’s prison population exceeds the number of people in some countries. The matter causes significant pressure on the nation, including the necessity to spend lots of taxpayers’ money on corrections. The presence of insensitive criminal justice policies is to blame for this matter. For example, the mandatory minimum sentencing terms associated with drug offenses worsen the present prison situation by sending more people to the centers. Another critical issue arising from the present-day prison-dependent correction system is the disproportionate presence of persons of color in the facilities. The matter leads many people to believe that American prisons are mainly meant for minorities, making the system a source of social disconnection and pain instead of correcting people’s behavior. Therefore, introducing prison gardens in America is vital in mitigating the current challenges of prisons’ overpopulation, high recidivism rate, and staid crimes performed by ex-convicts.

Relevant Facts Synopsis

America’s prison history is significantly old, with the nation being some of the corrections systems pioneers. The matter started long before independence as British masters and local chiefs established special establishments to punish people violating social and economic norms. The industrial revolution in the country then advanced the matter further, with the number of prisons and corrections officers growing. However, policies such as the Jim Crow law and the war on drug rule substantially impacted the prison schemes in the twentieth century. The latter law came through a presidential decree and purposed to punish the minorities believed to run the drug business (Hinton & Cook, 2021). The regulation achieved its mission by terming drugs-related crimes, especially those related to the have-nots, the worst offenses in the country (Lee & Wildeman, 2021). For example, a legal proceeding involving low-cost crack cocaine attracted mandatory minimum sentencing despite having similar effects to the powder cocaine mostly utilized by whites (Lee & Wildeman, 2021). Consequently, America now has one of the greatest prison populations globally, while the future remains dull.

The Major Ethical Issues

The overpopulation issue of prisons has been of great concern during the COVID-19 pandemic as the country struggled to maintain the large numbers. For a long while, America has used taxpayers’ money to sustain its corrections facilities (Ritter, 2020). However, the rise in inmate numbers, the worsening of the republic’s economy, and the emergence of other more pressing social problems requiring taxpayers’ money make the prison system unsustainable. Similarly, recidivism remains substantially high among community members, implying the present-day schemes’ failure to correct offenders (Hinton & Cook, 2021). Ritter (2020) notes that American prisons now operate as crime academies, where inmates serving long-term imprisonment teach first-time or less dangerous offenders perilous crime tactics. America must act quickly to save the situation or face even more dire consequences. The perpetual increase in crime rates over the recent years under the current structure of prisons proves the method’s failure. Lee and Wildeman (2021) fault the disconnection of offenders from nature during the correction process as one of the fundamental causes of failure under the current scheme. Accordingly, establishing a plan where correction takes place in a free environment can change things.

The racial imbalance in the racial presentation in American prisons causes racial wars among the citizens. The issue makes the corrections’ structure a source of social rift instead of a unifying factor working by showing people their mistakes and helping them change. As per Ritter (2020, p. 125), about 80% of the persons in U.S. prisons belong to minority groups. The matter causes considerable racial pressure, with some groups feeling targeted by the system and the government. Hinton and Cook (2021) maintain that at least all races would have a proportional presentation in the prisons if the scheme was fair. That is because crime reports over the years depict almost equal rates of criminal undertakings among all the racial groups in America. The republic’s corrections managers now seem to get the sense based on the intensive missions to find answers to the matter.

The inability to maintain the current large numbers of inmates in the U.S. leads to a more dangerous aspect of using inmates for profits. America lacks adequate public prisons to hold the overgrown number of prisoners (Lee & Wildeman, 2021). The situation forces the federal, state, and local governments to partner with private prison developers and organization owners to manage the pressure. The private correction facilities’ operators charge high fees to have inmates live in their estates. Money generated through the systems promotes unethical conduct, such as corruption among government officers. Ritter (2020) reports that most U.S. private prisons belong to persons connected to the government, including several policymakers, who may intestinally be making botched corrections laws to continue benefiting. The desire to make prisons sustainable leads some public and private prisons to offer individuals under correction to organizations as low-wage employees. The government already bans such a practice, but the temptation still exists. Therefore, maintaining the current prison system makes America’s future unmaintainable while exposing the nation to more ills than good.

Exposing inmates to punishments in a severe prison atmosphere amount to dealing with symptoms instead of the cause. Wakefield (2022) maintains that many offenders committing mistakes worth life imprisonment terms do that because of system failure. Poverty, lack of education, income, social profiling, depression, and other correctable conditions are some of the chief factors that take many people to cells in the U.S. Other than finding a better way of helping the suffering individuals realize a better life; the government takes them to biased punishment facilities, where some become more dangerous individuals. The matter leads to an unethical problem, where most Americans feel targeted by the government. As a democracy, the U.S. administration should embrace the ‘government of the people’ facet and stop torturing its citizens. The country already has smart policymakers which can lead in adopting better ways of correcting offenders. However, the bureaucratic protection of the current failing system due to the immoral gains that some people realize makes the struggle for change fruitless. Accordingly, introducing prison gardens in the U.S. penitentiaries offers a low-cost natural way of dealing with the matter.

Those supporting the continued existence of the prison system as it alludes to the past purported positive changes realized through the scheme. Issues such as the global reduction in crime rates in the 1990s and early 2000s make many people erroneously link prisons to the realized benefits (Timler et al., 2019). However, studies now show that the program is not sustainable as it is currently. Having offenders enclosed in inhumane settings where they face punishments daily leads to depression and other mental conditions, making it hard for convicts to change. The few coins acquired by corrupt prison leaders and private prison operators who participate in policy-making further lead to dangerous games in people’s lives. America requires new corrections procedures to realize the targeted beneficial results. Introducing the prison gardens scheme promises a new world to the U.S. Some American states already use the plan and are reaping big (Howarth et al., 2020). The matter necessitates a national policy change for the whole nation to benefit. The new method promises a paradigm shift in the sector and will make America secure.

Recommendations for Policy Modification Using Prison Gardens

The use of prison gardens in the U.S. dates significantly far. The plan was in operation in the second quarter of the twentieth century but closed due to individuals’ tendency to use it for commercial gains. Then, prisons used inmates to cultivate vast parcels of land to produce large volumes of food sold to the public for financial gain. The situation involved severe punishment and the use of inhumane tactics, some of which saw many prisoners die out of mistreatment (Timler et al., 2019). However, the new prison gardens’ strategy operates substantially differently from the previous one. The suggested modification plan applies gardens as therapeutic avenues for prisoners other than exposing them to forced labor and unhealthy conditions (Gregis et al., 2021). Under the new method, inmates capable of working in open fields under trained civilians or armed garden managers get the opportunity to interact with nature and take care of crops or trees as they serve their jail terms. Engaging in productive outdoor activities keeps convicts’ minds occupied and exposes them to essential skills necessary for survival outside the prisons, thus reducing recidivism.

Modification Rationale

The prison garden’s adoption acquires support from the modification’s many benefits compared to what the present system offers. For example, the modified scheme’s use of nature to correct inmates’ behavior in an open environment provides significant psychological stability to the offenders that help them realize holistic development. Unlike the wall or wire-enclosed environs present at the current prisons’ settings, pen gardens will allow inmates to walk freely in nature, enjoying free air while undertaking productive activities that build character and mental stability. Howarth et al. (2020) note that fresh air always puts humans in a better mood, helping them to manage stress. Malberg et al. (2020) reiterates that many prisoners, as much as they seem inhumane, have remorseful feelings and find the limitations inside the enclosed jails unbearable. However, interacting with nature substantially improves humans’ physical and emotional well-being. Therefore, helping inmates heal psychologically and behavior-wise is critical for complete restoration (Howarth et al., 2020). However, the present imprisonment system hardly considers the two vital aspects. The current American cells and jails punish people and make them feel the pain they caused other people, even when the offense is alleged.

Nature provides solutions to almost every human problem inexpensively and effectively. Prison gardens require soil and humans’ will to thrive and heal people’s hearts and bodies. According to Ardill (2022), most American prisons have vast parcels of idle land that can be used to train and correct inmates under the prison garden’s system. Equally, the U.S. has numerous agricultural organizations to offer prisoners training and the necessary support to flourish in the sector. The situation depicts America’s opportunity to excel in this program and help prisoners seeking to change their lives and nurture life from the soil. Under the current corrections program, almost everything has an attached cost. However, the suggested option depends more on nature than bought material. The U.S. will mainly use its prison wardens and idle land to realize the positive impact.

Using the system of prison gardens in the U.S. can help resolve the bootstrap social dilemma. Many people in highly diverse social settings conflict substantially due to blame related to socioeconomic deprivation. The blacks blame the whites and the government for the scarcity of opportunities, while the latter blame the former for laxity and slackness (Hinton & Cook, 2021). The whites maintain that the blacks should use their bootstraps to lift themselves, implying the possibility of using what one has to lift self. The blame game masks multiple realistic issues that can be resolved through social collaboration among the various races. The (bootstrap) analogy overlooks that some people may have things but fail to know how to utile them for one reason or another. The prison garden program offers a solution to this issue by teaching basic skills to offenders under correction. Glade et al. (2022) note exposing inmates to the new system promises to impart abilities such as horticulture farming for personal and family support. Consequently, offenders engaging in wrongdoings due to a lack of skills get out and utilize the acquired knowledge, which helps reduce recidivism.

Prison gardens teach prisoners a sense of responsibility as they raise a plant, support it, and have some duty for the plant’s endurance. A look at most lawbreakers spending longer time in prisons depicts the irresponsibility act. Some become bitter towards fellow humans due to the false or true confessions by close friends or people they trusted could save them by failing to talk to the government. The general feeling among such individuals is the need for revenge and hurt everyone they come across outside the prison (Simanovic & Gosev, 2019). The condition develops mainly due to replacing the natural responsibility feeling with an irresponsible spirit. The current prison structure in the U.S. does significantly nothing to take care of such special persons. Instead of teaching them love and how to love God’s creation, prison wardens serving in various jails conduct themselves in a manner that proves inhumanity towards offenders.

Prison gardens offer a calming escape from incarceration pressures and prove humanity among fellow citizens and correction officers. A major goal of jails is to hold a lawbreaker and help them realize their mistakes, forgive themselves, and become a real social being again. Such never happens in a cell where people remain enclosed in unclean environments without experiencing freedom. As per Oostermeijer et al. (2021), an individual must maintain constant contact with a positive goal to keep appreciating their need. Humans easily lose focus and become depressed when whatever they yearn for seems unrealizable. The same spirit develops when inmates serving long imprisonment terms take a long without experiencing freedom or sensing how such feels. Prison gardens’ ability to remind prisoners of the joy of freedom promotes their desire to do well, makes them have a real internal evaluation of what happened before they landed there, and resolve to do what it takes to live justly. General benefits associated with exercise; prison-acquired lifestyle conditions; decrease in depression; general lifted mood, particularly after a stressful life event; decreased risk of poor mental health; increased creativity; and improved self-esteem.

Introducing prison gardens promotes the realization of license-less occupations that save ex-convicts from re-engaging in crimes for survival. A principal requirement in the U.S. when seeking employment is one’s criminal history declaration (Oostermeijer et al., 2021). The condition makes many ex-prisoners lack income-generating opportunities for survival. The point that many offenders lack hands-on skills further worsens the issue due to the inability to venture into self-employment. Additionally, minority races’ disproportional numbers in jails mean that the problem affects one race more than the other. America thus needs a lasting solution to the current society-disabling corrections strategy. Prison gardens’ ability to train inmates into qualified farmers who appreciate the role of hard work, patience and persistence in life automatically converts them into self-employees who can support themselves, their families, and the community. Farmers hold the basis of America’s economy by providing food for society. Nonetheless, the profession’s intensive labor discourages many people, forcing the economy to rely on food imports for survival. Therefore, training ex-convicts on farming in the prisons amounts to helping them get skills to employ and feed the population, making them beneficial to the nation.

Applying the recommended systems to the correction sector will make it sustainable and cost-effective. Currently, almost all U.S. prisons acquire food and other supplies from outside using taxpayers’ money. That is why running the facilities costs the nation billions of money, forcing the government to borrow externally to meet its budget requirement at times (Lee & Wildeman, 2021). However, such pressure is manageable by introducing gardens in the cells’ grounds. Though using inmates to make profits through commercial activities is a banned practice in the U.S., the law permits inmates to undertake daily manual jobs for self-development and the institution’s growth. Oostermeijer et al. (2021) report that using prison gardens in places like the Netherlands saves the government billions of dollars initially spent on meals. The U.S. can equally go that way by adopting the new system proven to work elsewhere.

Conclusion

America’s correction institution is currently on the deathbed due to the many mistakes the nation harbors by supporting the punishment-based imprisonment system of the past centuries. The nation should abolish the old method and embrace modern, more effective strategies to realize the awaiting benefits. Presently, America’s jail population exerts substantial pressure on the government due to the high demand for food, care, and other necessities, forcing the republic to operate under duress despite its extensive wealth. Putting offenders in enclosed buildings or compounds hardly helps them recover but exposes them to mental distress and depression. The matter promotes recidivism rates, makes ex-prisoners bitter, and destabilizes the American community. That is why America needs to adopt the prison garden plan to transform weakness into strength.

References

Ardill, N. (2022). Social innovation in urban food spaces: An overview of European cities. Growing Food in Cities, 53-70.

Glade, S., Niles, S., Roudbari, S., Pezzullo, P. C., Dashti, S., Liel, A. B., & Miller, S. L. (2022). Disaster resilience and sustainability of incarceration infrastructures: A review of the literature.International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 103190.

Gregis, A., Ghisalberti, C., Sciascia, S., Sottile, F., & Peano, C. (2021). Community garden initiatives addressing health and wellbeing outcomes: A systematic review of infodemiology aspects, outcomes, and target populations. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(4), 1943.

Hinton, E., & Cook, D. (2021). The mass criminalization of Black Americans: A historical overview. Annual Review of Criminology, 4(1), 261-286. Web.

Howarth, M., Brettle, A., Hardman, M., & Maden, M. (2020). What is the evidence for the impact of gardens and gardening on health and wellbeing: A scoping review and evidence-based logic model to guide healthcare strategy decision making on the use of gardening approaches as a social prescription. BMJ Open, 10(7), e036923.

Lee, H., & Wildeman, C. (2021). Assessing mass incarceration’s effects on families. Science, 374(6565), 277-281. Web.

Malberg, D. P., Christensen, S., & Peterson, C. J. (2020). Community gardens and wellbeing amongst vulnerable populations: A thematic review. Health Promotion International, 35(4), 790-803.

Oostermeijer, S., Brasier, C., Harvey, C., Hamilton, B., Roper, C., Martel, A. & Brophy, L. (2021). Design features that reduce the use of seclusion and restraint in mental health facilities: A rapid systematic review.BMJ Open, 11(7), e046647.

Ritter, E. (2020). The industry of mass incarceration. Critical Quarterly, 62(2), 124-129.

Simanovic, T., & Gosev, M. (2019). Is food more than a means of survival? An overview of the Balkan prison systems.Appetite, 143, 104405.

Timler, K., Brown, H., & Varcoe, C. (2019). Growing connection beyond prison walls: How a prison garden fosters rehabilitation and healing for incarcerated men.Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 58(5), 444-463.

Wakefield, S. (2022). Incarceration, families, and communities: Recent developments and enduring challenges.Crime and Justice, 51(1), 000-000.

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