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Inmate gardening program spreading to other jails
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
In this July 25, 2011 photo, Sandusky County Jail inmate Kyle Krotzer mows the grass around plots of corn, squash, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce and other vegetables at the jail in Fremont, Ohio. (AP Photo/Fremont News-Messenger, Mark Tower) NO SALES
Associated Press
CINCINNATI
A northwest Ohio jail’s gardening program for inmates is spreading to other jails as a way to save on food and provide rehabilitation opportunities, the sheriff who developed the program said.
Sheriff Kyle Overmyer of Sandusky County says he has shared his program’s details with sheriffs as far away as Utah, and that sheriffs in Ohio’s Wood and Logan counties have since started their own gardens. The extent of the interest in the program was first reported by The News-Messenger of Fremont.
The vegetable garden covering more than an acre at the county jail in Fremont was started in 2009 when Overmyer was faced with budget cuts. The garden now includes raspberries and pumpkin and watermelon patches, along with vegetables like green beans, peas and broccoli. Last year, inmates began raising donated chickens.
“We raised 100 broilers last year and had 600 pounds of meat after processing,” Overmyer said. “This benefits the jail and allows inmates to learn a life lesson by working and seeing the results of that work.”
The sheriff estimates that the program, which excludes violent and new felony offenders, already has saved his office about $20,000.
Inmate John Smith, 31, of Gibsonburg, said the garden is helping him as he serves a 180-day sentence for petty theft.
“I’ve learned how to plant things, harvest them and prepare them for use, so I can raise my own garden when I go home” Smith said. “It also has helped me realize that I don’t have to lie, cheat and steal to get things. I can work for them.”
Jim Seaman, who coordinates the Community Work program that includes the garden, believes it gives inmates “a sense of self-worth.”
Jail officials in western Ohio’s Bellefontaine toured Overmyer’s garden before starting their own last summer. Logan County’s jail administrator, Greg Fitzpatrick, said that garden has more than doubled in size to about 21/2 acres “mainly because it was so successful and easy.”
“We also underestimated just how much would be consumed when we first started,” said Fitzpatrick, who says the jail tries to preserve some vegetables for later use. He estimated the garden saved the jail about $12,000 last year and allowed inmates to get time credits that can lead to a day or two off their sentences.
Logan County Sheriff Andy Smith is pleased with the savings and the rehabilitative possibilities.
He said one judge noted to an inmate who worked in the garden how much his personality had improved and how well jail officials said he had done.
“Just a little compliment like that makes some people stand up a little straighter and have more pride and realize that with hard work and effort, they can achieve some successes,” said Sheriff Smith, who hopes eventually to arrange volunteer educational services to teach inmates more about gardening.
Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said the 1/2 acre-garden at his northwest Ohio county’s jail in Bowling Green also has been a success, although officials haven’t yet tracked the savings. Vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini furnish food for inmates and even a salad bar for deputies.
“The vegetables benefit the inmates, and they learn skills of how to plant a garden and nurture it,” Wasylyshyn said. “You can see the pride in their faces, when they bring vegetables they have raised into the kitchen.”
Overmyer’s jail is the only one of the three to add chickens, but he doesn’t plan to stop there.
“We can hopefully develop our own products and maybe even market them and use the proceeds for the jail,” Overmyer said. “We might even come up with a ‘Slammer jam.’”