By Paul Sheldon
The American Correctional Association’s “Clean and Green” commitment to assisting correctional institutions to save money and produce new revenue, while increasing institutional security and protecting public safety, continued at this summer’s National Congress of Corrections, in National Harbor, Maryland.
ACA’s flagship “Clean and Green” Committee, recently re-chartered by ACA President Chris Epps of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, met on Saturday the 10th of August, to discuss recommendations and hear reports on ways to save money and increase revenue through sustainability-oriented and environmentally-responsible technologies and practices. Among the 40 attendees at the Committee were 9 representatives of the National Prison Industries Association, from such states as Pennsylvania, Utah, Montana, Tennessee and Alabama, as well as the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Co-Chairs Tommy Norris, of www.GreenPrisons.org, and John Rees of Rees and Associates Correctional Consulting, and a Past Commissioner of Kentucky Department of Corrections, called on numerous experts to report on the state of “greening” corrections. The Committee heard about a new study underway to survey correctional institutions nationwide about their green practices, based on the “Seven Steps” approach presented in the National Institute of Justice’s Greening Corrections Technology Guidebook as well as representatives of the Washington State Department of Corrections, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, the Vera Institute of Justice, and the Oakland, CA-based community organization, www.PlantingJustice.org.
Dan Pacholke, Assistant Secretary and Director of Prisons for the Washington DOC also joined with Jenny Hildebrand, Sustainability Coordinator, Ohio DOC; and Leah Morgan, Vera Institute of Justice & Ohio Green Prisons Project. Ohio is now offering the program, Roots of Success, in 13 institutions, where offenders have been trained to lead the program.
In reduced garbage fees alone, the Washington Department of Corrections has saved $4.9 million between 2004 and 2012, through recycling and composting. The savings have helped to fund the innovative Sustainability in Prisons Project Network, of which Asst. Sec’y. Pacholke is a co-founder.
As reported by Ms. Hildebrand, in Ohio, in addition to innovative education programs including raising endangered species under scientifically controlled conditions, one prison recycles all the refuse from Ohio State University football games, which has enabled the University to achieve an award-winning reduction of 92% in the waste generated from such events. And the prison gets to keep the revenue from selling the recyclables.
Founding Committee member Paul Sheldon, an independent consultant (and author of this article), presented a report on www.PlantingJustice.org in Oakland, California, which is developing an innovative, replicable model for providing education, job training, and programming based on organic gardening and food growing, starting inside the walls at San Quentin State Prison in California. The Planting Justice program leads to transitional job placement with Planting Justice post-release, in jobs that pay $17.50/hour plus benefits. The organization includes a door-to-door canvass program, which has raised as much as $20,000 per month from monthly supporters and is expected to increase in 2014. The organization is considering options for expansion and replication of its self-supporting activities into other regions and jurisdiction in 2014.
In addition to the regular meeting of the Clean and Green Committee, the ACA Congress featured three workshops on sustainability-oriented topics: Going Green Saves Your Agency’s Environmental Footprint and Taxpayers’ Dollars; Sustainability Initiatives and Offender Programming; and Implementing Environmental Management Systems.
In the Exhibitors’ Hall, “green” vendors included CorrectPac, Spartan Chemical, Kenall LED Lighting, and several other innovative, money-saving product offerings.
.ACA’s Clean and Green Committee will meet again at next January’s conference in Tampa, Florida.
Paul Sheldon is a Senior Advisor for Natural Capitalism Solutions, a founding member of the American Correctional Association’s Clean and Green committee, the principal author of the National Institute of Justice’s Greening Corrections Technology Guidebook, and a member of the Board of Trustees of www.PlantingJustice.org.