Rikers Greenhouse Project director James Jiler reads from his just-published book Doing Times in the Garden.
Listening in a meeting room on the island is an audience of Correction officials and officers, Horticultural Society
leaders and staff, and others involved with and supportive of the Rikers Island garden and farm projects.
Above: The front hard cover of Rikers Greenhouse Project director James Jiler's just-published book Click image to access the book's page on the web site of its publisher, New Village Press, Oakland, Ca.

Growing
Inmate
Skills
and
Hope
Along
with
Flowers,
Plants, and
Veggies
on Rikers
Island

Above: Book reading program cover. Below: Title images and texts from printed program's inside pages.

The Farm & Horticultural projects [on Rikers Island] are vocational programs that provide inmates with opportunities to learn practical employment skills and afford instruction in

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Farm Project

Carrolle Banfield, Director
T. Whiteman. Officer. EMTC
L. McGrier. Officer, EMTC

Horticulture Project

James Jiler, Horticulturist
Hilda Krus. Horticultural Therapist
E. Guzmán, Officer, SSD
S. Thomas, Officer, SSD

Retired Officers of the
Farm and Horticulture Projects

C. St. Fort. RNDC, Farm Project
M. Monserrate. UMTC, Farm Project
G. Perrcra, SSD. Horticulture Project
J. Ross, SSD, Horticulture Project

  • agriculture,
  • soil preparation,
  • landscaping and
  • harvesting techniques.

All vegetables produced by the Farm Project are organically grown and State inspected before being distributed to the Nutritional Services Division and community food pantries, such as City Harvest.

The Horticultural Society of New York affords inmates participating in the Horticultural Project with training in job skills such as

  • carpentry,
  • floral design and
  • landscaping.

Discharge planning. transitional services, internships and job placement are also integral components of the project.


Excerpts from Anthony R. Smith's Foreword.

Serenity, and, yes, even hope are hardly the words one associates with a jail or prison. Yet there is a small two-acre patch of New York City’s famous jail on Rikers Island for which those words are appropriate. This book is written to describe how one program can help change the term correctional facility from a euphemism to a reality. . . .

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Welcoming Remarks:

Martin F. Horn
Commissioner

Anthony R. Smith
President & CEO
Horticultural Society of New York

Program Overview and
Introduction of Staff:

Carrolle Banfield
Director
Farm & Horticulture Projects

Presentation:

James Jiler
Director, Greenhouse Project, Horticulturist & Author

Closing Remarks:

Ari Wax
Assistant Commissioner
Programs Management, Policy & Planning

This book describes the GreenHouse project of the Horticultural Society of New York (HSNY), a program for those incarcerated, which prepares them to change their lives so that after release they will not return to the behavior that led to incarceration.

. . . it remains a highly sophisticated program that combines classroom and hands-on gardening with life lessons about teamwork, responsibility and nurturing (plants and each other) and, because of that, a program that remarkably reduces recidivism. . . .

We are grateful for the support we receive from the New York City Department of Correction, the greenhouse and the land around it, the superbly trained, highly motivated, and carefully selected corrections officers who both transport the inmates to and from the project every day and remain present during the classes and work programs.

Beyond that, many generous foundations and individuals support the program salaries and classroom materials, and many big-hearted nurseries on Long Island and in Westchester County contribute extraordinary plant materials. . . .

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HSNY president Anthony R. Smith, speaking at the founding organizational meeting of the New York Correction History Society (NYCHS) in the Tombs jail July 13, 1999. He is an NYCHS board trustee.

In 1997 HSNY began a collaborative partnership with the three public library systems in New York City. Our GreenBranches program now has professionally designed gardens at 17 branch libraries in the City.

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Click the above logo of the Horticultural Society of NY to access its website.

Those gardens are maintained by former GreenHouse “students” who form our aftercare program —the GreenTeam. Another GreenTeam project is installing and maintaining gardens for New York City Housing Authority projects. We also partner with other nonprofits as well as private clients. . . .

All jurisdictions, whether county or city, have public libraries, plant nurseries, garden clubs or horticultural organizations and, also a jail that can replicate the kind of magical program we have in New York.

Surely, too, they can understand that serenity and hope need not be incompatible with jail.

Anthony R. Smith
President,
Horticultural Society of New York


Excerpts from Michael P. Jacobson's Foreword.

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As its first president Michael P. Jacobson speaks at the founding organizational meeting of the New York Correction History Society (NYCHS) in the Tombs jail July 13, 1999.

Whenever I think back on my time as the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction, there comes always a flood of contradictory memories.

Bud-less but still defiantly beautiful
Rikers garden scenes winter 2006 by
NYCHS photographer Tom O'Connor:

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All Rikers garden photos above in this image box were taken in winter 2006 by Tom O'Connor, photographer, for NYCHS. All rights thereto are retained and reserved by both. ©
I recall feeling -- and continue to feel -- a profound depression over the sheer numbers of poor and overwhelm- ingly minority men and women, many with serious health, mental health and drug addiction problems, who populate the City’s jail system.

Over 100,000 on any given year come to Rikers Island to await the disposition of their criminal case or to serve jail sentences of less than one year.

One can’t help but think—as this procession of the poorest New Yorkers comes in and out—that we can do something better for our most economically distressed communities to keep young people from landing in jail. . . .

On the other hand, Rikers Island is also populated with corrections officers and staff who serve selflessly and heroically to improve the lives of those who find themselves in jail.

It is populated with inmates who, despite overwhelming odds turn their lives around through the force of either sheer will or, more usually, with the benefit of a program or mentor who can tap into these mostly young people’s intelligence and excitement at rediscovering education or finding a craft they love.

During my tenure as Commissioner I would occasionally teach in the culinary program on Rikers, and the interest and excitement of the students who were trying to master a skill was always incredibly moving. These, in the end, are the most powerful memories for me -- inmates and staff engaged in some life affirming activity, going well beyond the usual “care, custody and control” mission of jails and prisons.

Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the horticulture program for men and women at Rikers Island. Though I can’t quite remember my precise reaction to the call from Tony Smith, President of the Horticultural Society of New York, in 1996 to suggest we begin such a program on Rikers, I imagine it was likely along the lines of “Are you insane?”

Initially, I couldn’t quite envision the connection between inner-city young adults, horticulture and landscaping. Additionally, the logistics of moving people in and out of jails and back and forth to the greenhouse and the gardens seemed challenging, to say the least.

The more Tony and I talked, however, the more I could see this actually taking shape and working. Inmates would have a chance to be outside and working at something they would enjoy instead of staying indoors and doing either nothing or rote jobs like polishing floors. And, I myself had experienced. as a home-grown New York City resident who, before getting a small backyard garden in my 30s had never planted a thing, that gardening, planting, harvesting and even composting were really enjoyable activities that transcended all backgrounds and demographic characteristics.

Tony was right. It was a great idea. The inmates who participated in the program had wonderful experiences. The staff that ran the program was incredibly dedicated. Great mentors and teachers developed programs outside of Rikers so that landscaping and horticultural skills could be further honed.

Many former inmates supported themselves with the skills they learned from these programs and went on to work in the field. It was always wonderful to see, as I traveled around Rikers Island, the students in the program busily planting, seeding and landscaping despite being in the midst of the world’s largest penal colony.

Most of these program participants had probably never even thought about growing flowers, much less actually doing the sometimes delicate, sometimes arduous task of weeding, pruning and feeding.

Yet, there they were—eager and anxious to get outside, to take care of their garden and participate in the miracle of watching beautiful things grow.

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The Vera Institute of Justice, headed by Michael P. Jacobson as its director and president, celebrated its 45 anniversary in 2006.

It began in 1961 when philanthropist Louis Schweitzer and magazine editor Herb Sturz created the Vera Foundation to find a way to make the bail system more equitable.

Out of that developed the Criminal Justice Agency (CJA), a private, nonprofit corporation providing pre-trial release services in NYC's Criminal Courts.. Jacobson serves as CJA chairperson.

In 1966 the Ford Foundation helped transform the family foundation into the Vera Institute of Justice, a private nonprofit organization devoted to developing practical solutions to justice system problems: crime and victimization, policing, the judicial process, sentencing and corrections.

Click the Vera@45 logo to access its website.

The GreenHouse project remains a relatively small program in a jail system that holds over 14,000 people every day. Yet for many, it changed their lives forever in profound ways. It . . . offers further proof that many in our jails and prisons want to do good and make good.

With relatively small effort and a dedicated staff of people like James Jiler who give tirelessly of themselves, many former inmates have discovered the pleasures of creating and nurturing beautiful things and have simultaneously learned practical skills. Perhaps more importantly, many have found that it wasn’t just the flowers and plants that they were so carefully helping to stay healthy and grow. It was, of course, themselves.

Michael Jacobson
President,
Vera Institute of Justice


Excerpts from James Jiler's Preface.

Rikers Island is the largest jail complex in the United States—a 415-acre island in Flushing Bay, ringed by razor wire and encompassing ten different jails.

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Author James Jiler has directed the Horticultural Society of New York's jail-to-street GreenHouse program on Rikers Island since the program's inception in 1997. Jiler, with a background in forestry and social ecology, holds an MS degree, .

The above image comes from the back of his just-published book. Click image to access more information about the book.

On any given day it is home to up to 20,000 inmates, a population that constitutes the bulk of New York City’s criminal justice system. Despite its foreboding nature, a majority of inmates, 65 % according to statistics, return to hikers each year,, caught in a cycle of recidivism and crime.

Since 1996, The Horticultural Society of New York has developed and administered a jail-to-street horticulture program for men and women inmates at Rikers Island, specifically to break this cycle. At our two-acre facility, complete with a greenhouse and attached classroom, inmates learn about plant science, ecology, horticulture skills, gardening construction and design.

Apart from our instructional gardens, we build bird and bat houses and bird feeders and grow plants for gardens in the schools and parks of different neighborhoods, using our Rikers GreenHouse as a resource that helps restore the connection between people and nature in the City’s urban communities.

Once released, students have the opportunity to work with us as paid interns, honing their skills as horticulturists as they build, plant and maintain gardens in New York City.

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"Tulips, Rosie's and Razor Wire" could be the title for this detail enlarged from a photo appearing on Page 146 of Jiler's book. In the foreground are yellow and red tulips grown in the Garden compound near one of two razor wire fences separating it from the Rose M. Singer Center (nicknamed Rosie's) for female inmates.

Click image to access more information about the book.

The provision of jobs is exceedingly important for ex-offenders, for it keeps them productive, employed, and learning as they negotiate the difficult task of re-integrating back into society.

Often I am approached by staff at jails and correctional facilities in states and counties across the country and Canada and asked how one establishes an effective prog1am for at-risk or incarcerated men and women. How do you engage people in developing job skills when they have no interest in learning?

.... The answers to these questions are many and reflect the complex nature of different city and state facilities found throughout the county as well as the social dynamics of the people incarcerated there. At Hikers Island, for example, there are ten jails housing ten different populations of offenders.

Unlike state programs, which can have inmates for extended periods of over a year, Rikers is for short-timers; many of our students are with us for less than six months, creating a constant turnover of new and old students. There is no one formula for a successful program. . . . . Doing Time in the Gardenwas written to inspire and assist practitioners in developing their own programs by sharing the collective experience and insights from our work on Rikers . . . .

To Part II of This 2-Part Presentation:
More Excepts from James Jiler's book. more 2006 Rikers Island winter garden images.

Click description link below to access page in Rikers Island Had A Farm: E-I-E-I-O.
Page
1:
Rikers family farm & Municipal Farm
Page
2:
Land Tilling & Landfilling
Page
3:
Eggery, piggery & tree nursery
Page
4:
Trees go but vegs & flowers linger.
The New York Sun full story "At Work on Rikers, in the Garden of Good and Evil" by staff reporter Lauren Elkies published Friday, August 12, 2005.

To: NYCHS home page.
To NYC DOC history menu page.