Prisoners Turn Over a New Leaf with Eyes on the Environment

One would think it is some new designer eco-hotel where the rich and environmentally conscious can be pampered free of guilt:
     -The organic vegetable travel a short distance form the well-tended garden to the
      table where they are eaten
     -Waste is carefully picked through and recycled, saving thousands of dollars
     -The close-cropped lawns are maintained by push mowers to cut down on carbon
      emissions and gas expenses.

Designer hotel -- no.  Prison -- yes.

At the Stafford Creek Corrections Center, a few yards from the garden where strawberries and cucumbers grow looms a tower where guards watch inmates, high-powered rifles at the ready.  A jungle of razor wire surrounds the facility.

Hundreds of inmates not only have a positive impact on their prison environment, but on the world beyond the walls confining them.  Washington state inmates are restoring local protected, yet disappearing grasslands by hand planting thousands of seedlings in a prison greenhouse.  Inmates at another state prison raise an endangered species of frog.

The inmates work for less than a dollar an hour and, as a result of their incarceration, are able to take on time consuming labor intensive projects.  Both ecologists and prison officials have been surprised by the passion and seriousness of the prisoners involved with the project.  The inmates raising the frogs had better results than a group of scientists conducting a similar project in a lab.

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