US (LA): State horticulture licenses program in prison

Christopher O'Neal has mastered many parts of landscaping and greenhouse work — plant cultivation and pesticide application, among six others — though it's unlikely he'll put those skills to use outside the walls of Louisiana's prison in Angola. So he tends to greenhouse plants that will be sold at the prison's rodeos and trains short-timers for honest work on the outside.

Of the 30 students and 11 mentors, most are in for life or "tall numbers." Those who will get out can make a new career or resume an old one with more licenses and updated information, while those staying find a positive way to spend their time.

Only about a quarter of the inmates getting their certifications are in programs aimed at helping them re-enter society.

The horticulture program here, started in 2002, has 7 acres at a prison that covers more land area than Manhattan, said Marcus Barnardez, who works at Angola full-time as an assistant professor of horticulture at Baton Rouge Community College. It's modeled after a program started in 1995 at the Louisiana Women's Correctional Institution in St. Gabriel.

Each inmate has a 50-by-75-foot plot to grow whatever he wants, and a larger plot where he must grow specific crops.

There's little scope for their skills in the rest of the prison. For example, few could spray pesticides on the 600 to 800 acres of row crops grown to feed inmates at Angola and other prisons, Barnardez said. Most are not trusties — inmates given special privileges for good behavior — and must stay in the prison yard, he said.

More than 90 inmates have earned about 250 certifications from the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry over the past five years, said Barnardez.
He said the few who have moved into society have done well, often earning supervisory jobs and running crews for landscaping companies.

Source: newser.com