When Prisons Need to Be More Like Nursing Homes

Arizona's Inmate Wildfire Program trains incarcerated people to fight wildfires, paying them low prison wages to provide a critically needed service as wildfires grow more common. Members of the only all-female crew, from Perryville Prison, tell of their pride of accomplishment in doing a dangerous job, and of the rehabilitative benefits of the program. They also describe their frustrations when regulations often bar them from using their skills after release from prison.

The Sanganer open prison serves as an important alternative to traditional incarceration in India by remaining open for 12 hours a day and allowing inmates to go out. It is one of 88 open prisons in India that works on a model of reform and helps inmates to keep their connection with work, family, and society. In doing so, it enables the development of trust as well as skills that can help them not just during incarceration but also after release.

As Argentine went into strict quarantine in March 2020 and prison rules got stricter, the Court of Appeals in the Province of Buenos Aires allowed the use of cellphones to inmates to ease some of their isolation. It is one of four provinces that legally implemented this measure to last the span of COVID restrictions, but the ruling is still in place and has allowed inmates to keep in touch with loved ones, study, learn new skills, use digital payments, and even participate in virtual protests,

At the Los Angeles County Jail, two men incarcerated on pending murder charges created a homegrown approach to improving the care and conditions of confinement for people with serious mental illness. Their approach is simple: showing love and care for people whose illness makes them feel like outcasts. By helping fellow incarcerated men attend counseling and other programs, and by tending to their personal needs, the initiative has contributed to a significant drop in people harming themselves. Fewer restraints are needed, and the pods where the program operates are notably cleaner and calmer than before.

Mountain View Correctional Facility in Maine has turned its food service into a farm-to-table experience, sourcing healthier, more appetizing meals from its own apple orchard and vegetable garden and from local farmers. Prison food is traditionally a "hidden punishment" of bland or inedible fare that has poor nutritional value. By eating locally, cooking from scratch, and training incarcerated people in horticulture and cooking skills, the prison is fostering an atmosphere that's healthier physiologically and psychologically.

Chicago's Cook County Jail became the first jail in the nation in March to open a polling place behind bars, resulting in about 1,800 voters casting ballots, a sharp increase in voting by eligible voters in the jail. The polling place, combined with expanded voter-registration efforts, resulted from a new Illinois law requiring all counties to expand voting access. Outside of Chicago that means voting by mail. The Chicago experience provides a window into efforts nationwide to expand voting access to people incarcerated in jails and prisons, or with criminal records.

A North Dakota prison looks to Norway's prison model that focuses on prisoner rehabilitation rather than punishment. By giving offenders responsibility, private space, and access to the outside world, these prisons have found lower rates of recidivism and more success with rehabilitation.

Connecticut's WORTH program (Women Overcoming Recidivism Through Hard Work) has changed the tone of one prison where it's being tested, by giving incarcerated women the ability to craft self-help programs while treating them with an approach in short supply in American prisons: dignity. While the ultimate goal of the program is to reduce returns to prison, and the state's overall female incarceration rate, the more immediate effect of the new program is anecdotal: Prison officials and incarcerated women alike see people gaining a sense of control over their lives and planning for a healthy future.

In California, about 18,400 inmates are over the age of 55. In order to properly treat them the state is building a dementia unit. Other states like New York might follow suit, in order to properly care for their aging inmate population.

In the Inside-Out Exchange program half of the students are college students, and the other half are prison inmates. The program has “expanded to about 150 correctional institutions across the globe” but the biggest takeaway is the effect it has on people. Students were “ engaged in a way they never had been in the classroom. For the inmates, suddenly their opinions mattered.”