Linking Ecological and Human Restoration: The Sustainability in Prisons Project

Background/Question/Methods

In 2012, over 2.2 million Americans (about 1% of the adult population) are in prison. Simultaneously, millions of hectares of habitat are imperiled and millions of organisms are being reared and restored to landscapes and ecosystems. The Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP) aims to both help reduce the environmental, economic, and human costs of prisons by inspiring and informing sustainable prison practice, and working with restoration partners to rear and translocate plants, invertebrates and vertebrates to threatened systems in the Pacific Northwest. This unique project is an integrated mix of conservation biology, science education, and social justice, and provides a successful model for expansion at new sites and with new species across the country. We have established collaborations with the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Dept. of Defense, and scientists at non-governmental organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and Center for Natural Lands Management. Inmates and college students are currently involved in research projects that examine enhanced germination rates for prairie plants exposed to smoke water, differences in anti-predator response for endangered frogs from two source populations, and oviposition preferences among plant species for endangered butterflies.

Results/Conclusions

Since 2008, inmate technicians trained by the SPP have raised over 600,000 native prairie plants (16 species), a suite of riparian plants, and reared and released over 300 Oregon spotted frogs. Frogs raised in prison are 30-50% larger than non-prison rearing facilities and have begun reproducing in the wild. A new project rears the endangered Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly in a women’s prison. Work with a surrogate butterfly species has revealed significant improvement in rearing (butterflies are 120-140% larger) at the prison greenhouse compared with other rearing facilities. The inmate technicians involved in these programs gain valuable skills in observation, record-keeping, water quality testing, horticultural methods, and restoration ecology. The scientists with state, federal and non-governmental agencies are able to rear more and larger organisms than they would with current non-prison facilities, and prison officials report reduced violent outbursts, altered environmental stewardship attitudes and lowered prison costs as outcomes of the SPP. As an academic leading this project, my students learn valuable lessons in restoration and restorative justice. A truly interdisciplinary project, the SPP has had major successes in its few years, not just in prison programming, but in restoration science.