The media is in the “If it bleeds, it leads” business. As a result, many pressing social problems and promising initiatives get short shrift. Incarcerated people, such as inmates and patients of mental health institutions, and incarcerated, such as the Alzheimers wings of nursing homes, end up invisible. However, the US has more than 1.2 million prisons by the end of 2022. And here we are the clear world leaders. Our captive birds represent 20% of the world’s total.
A new story, America’s Little Test at the Financial Times opens a window into this world and ends up highlighting the contradictions in US policy towards prisoners. The episode is about the charity Puppies Behind Bars. I know Puppies Behind Bars because I gave it a few years after it was created in 1997. At first, it was to train puppies as service dogs for the blind.1 The idea behind using prisoners was that they could give the puppies the attention they needed to become seeing-eye dogs; it’s a 24-hour-a-day job if done right. Not all candidates make it even through advanced training. And of course the second set of reasons involved the prisoners: they would learn to care for another creature and then give it up when they “graduated.”
The article talks about how the founder of Puppies Behind Bars, Gloria Stoga, decided to bring Puppies Behind Bars to one of the strongest facilities in the US, Green Haven, where half of the population is serving life sentences. Puppies Behind Bars has strict screening standards for inmates: they must never attack prison staff or attempt to escape, they must be innocent for a year, and the mush has never been charged with a sex crime or violence against children or animals. A previous story reports that they were also tested for, among other things, willingness to handle dog feces and fluids. Oh, and they have to have at least three years in prison left.
The Financial Times story does not clearly indicate, as previous descriptions of Puppies Behind Bars do, that the inmates who care for these dogs are taken to another prison. This was a training model from 2004, at The Smithsonian:
Two caregivers—a primary caregiver and an assistant—are assigned to each puppy. Prisoners, who live with their dogs in a separate house from the regular prison, take the dogs everywhere, from prison work to the dentist. There is a six-hour training session once a week. Breeders learn to teach their charges to climb stairs, come when called and not to bark or beg. Another prisoner, whose puppy went to a guide dog school in France, learned to give commands in French.
The reason why Stoga is interested in such a strict prison, as the title indicates a long situation, training these puppies is a very difficult and difficult task. Those with long sentences, if they make the grade, can be coaches for many years. So while, as this article shows, the failure rate among Green Haven inmates selected for the program is (so far) high, those who make it have relatively long terms as trainers. And since this seems to be the strongest population Stoga has captured, it’s possible that he and the rest of the Puppies Behind Bars staff will be better at screening this type of population, and if that turns out to be true, at successfully recruiting other high-security prisons to participate. (the article says Puppies Behind Bars has worked in other high security facilities but points out that Green Haven is particularly difficult, for reasons that seem to have more to do with its size).
Warden Mark Miller is a staunch supporter:
Miller arrived in Green Haven in 2021 determined to bring PBB to prison. You have heard of the dog that was sent by the program to help the widow of a fallen police officer. Action came to him. He says: “I’m not a bleeding heart person. “My whole thought was, where are these dogs going, and who are they helping who really need them?”
There was also a work case. Boredom is the root cause of most bad behavior in prisons. Miller saw that having programs like the college in Green Haven kept men engaged and busy, and reduced violence, suicide and drug abuse.
In the US, the “inside management” argument that programs improve the behavior of prisoners and, thereby, improve the working conditions of the staff remains very powerful politically. It is still considered progressive in a country where many believe that violent offenders deserve nothing but a cell.
Note that the article addresses a possible additional justification for Puppies Behind Bars, which is updated. An old Smithsonian story focuses on the fact that a small number of inmates as instructors never had a negative impact on the entire institution:
Since November 1998, Jim Hayden has watched puppies work their magic at the Fishkill Correctional Facility, a 1,750-man prison in Beacon, New York. Although there are only 25 inmates who keep pets, “the dogs have had a calming, humanizing effect on all the staff, including myself,” said Hayden, who is the assistant deputy superintendent of programs. “They broke into these prisoners, took their hard shells and broke them. Their level of love and devotion to these dogs is something I did not expect to see.”
A 20-month analysis sponsored by pet food company Iams, which supplies PBB food, supports Hayden’s observations. Prisoners who raised puppies reported better outcomes than a group of prisoners who did not work with dogs. PBB inmates are compassionate and responsible, and believe they can change their lives.
Tony Garcia, 42, raised four PBB dogs before he was released from Fishkill last January after serving 16 years for armed robbery. He now supports his wife and four children by painting flats and has applied for a full-time job as an ex-convict charity worker. “The patience and hope that I have, and my willingness to work hard,” said Garcia, “I got from being in that program.”
Jake Charest, 27, who is serving a nine-year sentence of 7 to 21 years for attempted murder, is raising his second dog, Skip. “All of us in the program apologize for what we did, but instead of just saying it, which is easy, we show it,” he said. “These dogs make time here bearable.”
The Smithsonian points out that the Puppies Behind Bars program did not reduce recidivism….for Fishkill overall, given the small number of participants, it seems an unreasonable expectation.
Your humble blogger must admit to having dangerously little knowledge of this world. I can count the number of people I know personally who have been arrested with one hand and left with fingers. Two were very well off, the other was living well, so all three went out without having to worry about not having enough money to pay for accommodation, food and travel. Only one had a history of violence: the worst worker I hired to do a lot of odd jobs as I prepared my mother’s house for sale. He was very aggressive (which I had never seen before), used to fighting on social media, and didn’t care about being in jail.
Given that America’s prisons are not in the business of rehabilitation, it’s not hard to see why so many return to the slammer after release. Even those without sociopathic tendencies may find it difficult to settle into a normal life, especially part of a regular paid job. If they were in or on the side of gangs or drug dealing, it’s not hard to see them returning to it even if they were determined not to, if they find it difficult to get money in a legal way.
I urge you to read this passage fully. It is well written and the author has clearly wrestled with the intent of punishment and whether rehabilitation and redemption are possible. For example:
Being in prison distorts your beliefs, like trying to see something clearly in water. I will never know the truth about men. But I have come to believe that no one is worth the worst thing he has ever done. No one is as good as the best thing they’ve done, either. This is something dogs don’t need to be taught.
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1 I have to admit that I stopped donating after I came back from Australia. This story does not go back far enough in time to cover the transition from sight dogs to dogs in veterinary and law enforcement related roles. But it is not difficult to explain to the author openly that a lot of prison guards and the guards themselves resent this program as giving criminals the opportunity to play with dogs, and thus oppose it, that Stoga felt it necessary to appeal to the gatekeepers. by training dogs in roles that were seen as serving the wider police community.
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