San Quentin State Prison Garden

We are working with the Insight Garden Program (IGP) at San Quentin State Prison to develop a 40X40 foot vegetable garden inside the medium security unit of the prison that will provide inmates with job-training skills they can use upon their release.  We teach a course on urban permaculture and organic food production to the 30 men enrolled in the IGP course, and they are involved in the planning, design, implementation, and maintenance of their vegetable garden.

In collaboration with IGP, we are working towards a post-release job placement and volunteer program that will give former inmates the opportunity to work at our nurseries and as urban farmers, in the hope that this will help them stay out of prison.

Be sure to check out the attachments at the bottom of this page. On January 22, 2010, Planting Justice helped to facilitate a group discussion and reflection about the personal and vocational benefits of the Insight Garden Program and its garden. Also attached is a poem about Planting Justice written by John Patrick, one of the Insight Garden Program participants who resides at San Quentin State prison.

Here is an article written by Haleh Zandi on the Insight Garden Program. Check out their website: http://www.insightgardenprogram.org/

“By Growing Plants, People Also Grow”:The Insight Garden Program
with Program Director Beth Waitkus (Personal Communication March 12, 2009)

About the Program

In collaboration with San Quentin State Prison, the Insight Garden Program provides rehabilitation to self-selected prisoners in the Medium Security unit through learning about and participating in the process of organic gardening. Beth Waitkus describes, “It’s an ugly place! It’s really not a pleasant place, environmentally. It’s stark and grey. There’s lots of razor wire, fences, and lots of guards running around with guns. Once you get to know the people inside, you just forget about that and you see our garden and it’s a beautiful oasis.” Waitkus says she faced "a lot of resistance" when she first proposed the garden program, but she insisted on developing relationships with key stakeholders in the prison system to build the garden through a participatory, collaborative, and transparent planning process. She describes those initial days in 2003, "It took 14 months to do everything we needed to do, to get through the prison system and win the approvals, and then it took three days to build the 1,200-square-foot plot” with both inmates and volunteers participating on that muddy, rainy Winter Solstice. Solely as a native California organic flower garden, the roses, geraniums, calendula, verbena, heliotrope, anemones, Echinacea, lush greenery, and ornamental grasses spring forth from the harsh walls of incarceration. San Quentin is the oldest prison in the state, the only place in the state to house male inmates fated for death by lethal injection, with the largest death row in this country.

Though the prison is designed for a capacity of about 3,000 prisoners, San Quentin houses more than 5,250 men. The Insight Garden Program is available only to the 1,000 inmates who are living in the dorms of the H-unit, where 200 men share each dorm. These men will eventually be paroled and they must pre-qualify for the program based on the determination of the prison staff. As many as 350 men have participated in the Insight Garden Program since its inception, and many inmates are on the waiting list to join the classes and hands-on workshops equipped for a maximum number of 30 prisoners. Beth Waitkus describes, “I have to go through several levels of security before I go in. I have a special prison ID. I am actually a prison staff person, so I can move through the prison freely. If I have visitors, I have to bring them in earlier, because there are a lot of logistics at the time I go in. There is a shift change, between the second and third watch at 1:30 pm. At that time, there are hundreds of cars going in and out of the prison and sometimes it’s challenging to get people and materials in. What I usually do is go down to the unit we work in, the medium-security unit of the prison, and get ready for class. I pick up attendance sheets, I get doors unlocked, and I talk to custody to have them call for our class, so the men know we’re having class.”

The Classes

Classes through the Insight Garden Program have been ongoing for more than four years. Through course curriculum and hands-on experience, inmates learn about organic gardening, designing and budgeting a landscaping business, setting up irrigation, amending soils, maintaining seasonal gardens, plant biology and plant propagation, environmental sustainability, personal growth, and community care. Beth Waitkus describes that “by working in an organic flower garden, men also become ecologically literate — developing an awareness of their connection to and impact on the world around them. They learn about the interconnectedness of human and ecological systems and how the principles of the natural world, such as diversity and cooperation, transfer to all levels of human systems. When vocational skills are combined with life skills, program participants gain self respect, pride in their work, and develop a higher level of functioning so they can break the cycle of incarceration and find meaningful work after release.” The theory behind the project's approach of "reconnecting through nature" is that gardening is filled with opportunities for personal development. “Because nature cultivates awareness, the men learn to respond rather than react.”

The Personal Transformation of Prison Inmates

“Our goal is to get the men to be free inside. Freedom comes from one’s heart. A lot of men will tell you, ‘it doesn’t matter where you are, if you’re stuck in your mind, you are in your own prison.’ So, we try to get them to get out of their mind and into their bodies and hearts, to realize they are as free as they need to be in the moment. Some of them look at it as a big retreat,’ Beth says, laughing. “Often, new inmates come into our class having no real clue what we really do and a few will leave when they realize they actually have to do some work on themselves. But, most of them stick around for as long as they are in prison. They stay with us a really long time and there’s a lot of training that goes on: there’s communication skills and team-building skills.

Inside the classroom, we do what we call our ‘inner gardener’ work, because they are working on their own potential, on processing their feelings, on therapeutic work, and on how to release judgment against oneself. Before going out to the garden, we do meditation, usually guided and something around nature. These men are willing to commit to making change in their lives. Our classes are fairly short, they are an hour and 15 minutes, but we get a lot done and days when we are actually working in the garden, we start earlier. We have to have them back at their dorms by 4 o’clock because there is a prison count then, everybody in the whole prison gets counted. We wrap things up, and I go through a few levels of security to get out.” While Beth Waitkus is certain the inmates will gain much from her classes, it is her bigger hope that “many of them will take the organic, sustainable gardening skills they have learned to the outside and secure jobs that will allow them to apply their newfound abilities and knowledge.”

Creating Social Change through a Striking Example of Diversity

Diversity is both a core element and a result of the Insight Garden Program. Not only are all ethnic groups equally represented in the classroom, but the garden is the only non-segregated area of the prison yard, transcending the traditional racial segregation of prisons. Beth Waitkus explains that “there are a lot of gangs and the garden is the only space in the prison yard where the men do not self-segregate. They work together, they mix together. We think that nature promotes that in its diversity.” Gardening projects such as the one at San Quentin can act as an intervention approach to creating healthier physical environments and social climates. This program has the potential to be expanded to prison systems throughout California as “these men are gaining skills so that once they are paroled they are able to collaborate with local communities to help design and build community gardens, and maybe begin to transform the prevailing attitudes about having ‘done time’.” Currently, Beth Waitkus is trying to add "the missing piece—what happens on the outside? With Van Jones as the green czar, we want to do a job placement program.” As she collects data following the prisoners' release, Beth Waitkus is acutely aware that more research needs to be done here.

Problems the Program Faces and the Injustices of the Prison Industry

More than 70% of those within the California prison system return to prison within three years after being paroled. With such high recidivism rates, effective rehabilitation programs can lessen the financial and social burdens on society. Beth Waitkus asserts, “Something is not working here. It has to change from the ground-up and the top-down, and we are working more on the ground-up level, but I also have seen some shifts in the system since I’ve been working in it. Recently, there was a major leadership change in wardens, and so we had to gain the support of this new warden,” as the last one was a strong ally for the garden. Beth Waitkus describes that “when trying to get anything going, we have to figure out what all the issues might be, so that when we are told ‘no, you can’t do that’, we have a solution. That’s the approach we’ve always taken, because we have a lot of resistance to the work we do, so we have to figure out how to work around that resistance. That requires a lot of my time being there, figuring out what’s going on, developing relationships with people, collaborating. It’s a very challenging place to work, but we do it for the people that are living there who are going to leave…. It’s really the system’s bureaucracy, the logistics and mindset of a military-industrial complex, with this incredibly strict hierarchy that makes it very difficult. We can’t move freely, for obvious reasons because they want to protect the security of the people that live there, work there, and visit. But, it’s not a system that really works…. Every plant that comes on to the grounds must be approved by a Custody Captain who is primarily concerned that plants not exceed a certain height so that no one can hide amid the foliage. The prison staff are also concerned that inmates might hide weapons in the soil. On workdays in the garden, tools are strictly tracked and returned at the end of each class session.” Beyond a flower garden, the establishment of a vegetable garden has been in the works for about a year now, but has been faced with even more resistance. According to prison policy, “all food consumed by the inmates must be USDA approved. When the vegetables are to be harvested, they can’t be for the men because every inmate is supposed to have access to the same foods, and this garden can’t possibly feed 6,000 men. So, the vegetables will have to be donated.”

The Relationships between Beth Waitkus and the Prison Inmates

In talking about her relationships with the inmates participating in the Insight Garden Program, Beth Waitkus describes, “There is a very strong feeling of trust between me and the inmates. But, also I have to be very careful about setting boundaries with them. Obviously I’m a woman in an all male prison, so I have to be very strict about my boundaries. We are taught how to do that, and that’s also just common sense. But, we treat them like human beings, to us they are just people that are on our level, we don’t see us as being above or below them. And they return that respect in droves. I get a lot more from them than they could ever realize because there is a real feeling of camaraderie. We work together and we learn together. They know that our intentions are true, it’s a very good thing. Our relationships with the prison staff are different. Once people get to know us, they really like us and they are willing to work with us. Because of the system and culture there, it is very hard to change perceptions, views, and mindsets about what this is all about. Overall, we have had a good experience with the prison and the people there. There are always a few bad apples, on both sides, but relationship building has been very important.

What the Program Means to Beth Waitkus

Beth Waitkus spends one afternoon a week out of her business life to meet with and teach the inmates. "When things get crazy, I think - ah, Friday, I'll be in the prison garden." When I asked her how she came about starting such an amazing program, she told me, “Basically, 9/11 really knocked me off my feet spiritually. I wanted to find a way to give back to the community and to find my faith again in humanity. In a series of synchronicities, I had somebody who worked at San Quentin ask me to start a garden there, and it all just evolved. It’s kind of a miracle and it has renewed my faith in human spirit and human nature, time and time again. My faith in the goodness of people has truly been reinforced and re-inspired. These men are incredible, if only they had the resources to really help them on the inside and the outside.”

Collaboration

Beth Waitkus informed me, “We need money and collaboration. I prefer to work with other non-profits. I am reluctant to take money from the state, because then we might be beholden to what they want. I would be more open to the Feds, especially with Van Jones as the ‘green job’ advisor. But, we want to develop relationships with other like minded organization so we can collaborate, work together, and share our best practices.” As I describe to her the work of Planting Justice and the ways in which we would like to help out, she is excited by the offer. She tells me “there is a space where we can start the vegetable garden.”