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Doing Time in the Garden: Life Lessons through Prison Horticulture
Inspiring firsthand account of how in-prison vocational training programs at Riker's Island Jail lead to meaningful post-release employment and reduce recidivism - the Green House and GreenTeam run by James Jiler for the Horticultural Society of New York.
James Jiler combines an engaging personal account of running a highly successful horticultural vocation program at the largest jail complex in the United States with a practical guide to starting and managing prison and re-entry gardening programs.
The Greenhouse Project gives horticultural job-training to male and female inmates at New York City's Rikers Island jail system. After release, ex-offenders can intern with the GreenTeam, which provides landscaping and gardening services to community groups and institutions throughout New York State.
Jiler's humor and heartfelt stories about prison community and clear explanations of what works broaden this book's appeal to all social activists involved with at-risk populations.
James Jiler combines an engaging personal account of running a highly successful horticultural vocation program at the largest jail complex in the United States with a practical guide to starting and managing prison and re-entry gardening programs.
The Greenhouse Project gives horticultural job-training to male and female inmates at New York City's Rikers Island jail system. After release, ex-offenders can intern with the GreenTeam, which provides landscaping and gardening services to community groups and institutions throughout New York State.
Jiler's humor and heartfelt stories about prison community and clear explanations of what works broaden this book's appeal to all social activists involved with at-risk populations.
- GenresGardeningNonfiction
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 23, 2013
Doing Time In The Garden by James Jiler is a very interesting, inspiring and amazingly informative book on horticultural job training program on Rikers Island offered to inmates doing time in prison with the objective of better job opportunities for them in society. James has managed to show a beautiful and smooth interaction between nature and individuals, emphasising and helping to bring forth their inner latent talents and help creating peace of mind.....its a definite "Must Read" !
July 18, 2019
There are few people who haven't experienced a certain joy at working in a garden, or even on the smallest planter box, or likewise felt the peace of just being in a secluded greenspace, shrouded by trees and flowering with life.
James Jiler in "Doing Time in the Garden" takes the reader through a special program at Rikers' Island Jail, in which prisoners who demonstrate good behavior and some interest are allowed to work on everything from erecting gazebos to planting flowerbeds. Those who show real aptitude can even get jobs as certified landscapers on the outside. For readers who don't know, landscapers make good money, especially those with special skills or their own landscaping business, even of the boutique variety (especially in New York, where beautification of public city space is always in high demand).
Mr. Jiler, while offering hope to both the prisoners and to those wish the prisoners well, isn't laboring under illusions. Stories of relapses, the hazards of impeded sight-lines in jail (due to growing taller plants), as well as the clash of personalities are all dealt with in "Doing Time." I imagine also that the temptation to use the newfound horticultural knowledge to grow illegal cash crops must be high for some of the students (though the worst infraction documented in the garden here is an inmate sneaking fennel from the herb patch back into the dorm where she uses it in her tea).
The book is a mix of practical advice for getting started in gardening as well as anecdotes and insights about the people involved in the program. Prisoners come and go (Rikers, it should be remembered, is a holding facility for those awaiting sentencing or doing shorter sentences), but despite the how-to nature of the book some interesting and compelling personalities emerge that give the short work a bit of narrative heft, making it hard not to care about the people involved. There's the fallen son from a family of famous musicians in Harlem, who struggles with his addictions while flourishing as a kind of savant at botanical aesthetics (you'd be surprised how much high-end floral arrangements cost, and how well the florists earn); there's a story about a woman who lived in a coop apartment with a 500 lbs. tiger (!), whose origins I'm still not clear about (he may have come from the Bronx Zoo). Other stories and lives are less exotic, but equally compelling. None of these people seem bad; they're mostly overcharged victims of the drug war or people with mental issues that prison is only exacerbating.
"Doing Time," offers hope, without pretending to be a cure for America's prisoner population. It is a first step, or rather, a first seed planted, that neither overstates nor forsakes the potential for salvation that lies in the garden. The term "Penitentiary" itself referred to the "penitent" in a religious sense, and while the efficacy of the original model was disproven (prisoners asked to sit silently in their cells and reflect on their crimes eventually went insane), there may have been some truth at least to the old saw that "Idle hands are the Devil's plaything." Photos, some of them very beautiful, are included, as well as some sketches. Recommended.
James Jiler in "Doing Time in the Garden" takes the reader through a special program at Rikers' Island Jail, in which prisoners who demonstrate good behavior and some interest are allowed to work on everything from erecting gazebos to planting flowerbeds. Those who show real aptitude can even get jobs as certified landscapers on the outside. For readers who don't know, landscapers make good money, especially those with special skills or their own landscaping business, even of the boutique variety (especially in New York, where beautification of public city space is always in high demand).
Mr. Jiler, while offering hope to both the prisoners and to those wish the prisoners well, isn't laboring under illusions. Stories of relapses, the hazards of impeded sight-lines in jail (due to growing taller plants), as well as the clash of personalities are all dealt with in "Doing Time." I imagine also that the temptation to use the newfound horticultural knowledge to grow illegal cash crops must be high for some of the students (though the worst infraction documented in the garden here is an inmate sneaking fennel from the herb patch back into the dorm where she uses it in her tea).
The book is a mix of practical advice for getting started in gardening as well as anecdotes and insights about the people involved in the program. Prisoners come and go (Rikers, it should be remembered, is a holding facility for those awaiting sentencing or doing shorter sentences), but despite the how-to nature of the book some interesting and compelling personalities emerge that give the short work a bit of narrative heft, making it hard not to care about the people involved. There's the fallen son from a family of famous musicians in Harlem, who struggles with his addictions while flourishing as a kind of savant at botanical aesthetics (you'd be surprised how much high-end floral arrangements cost, and how well the florists earn); there's a story about a woman who lived in a coop apartment with a 500 lbs. tiger (!), whose origins I'm still not clear about (he may have come from the Bronx Zoo). Other stories and lives are less exotic, but equally compelling. None of these people seem bad; they're mostly overcharged victims of the drug war or people with mental issues that prison is only exacerbating.
"Doing Time," offers hope, without pretending to be a cure for America's prisoner population. It is a first step, or rather, a first seed planted, that neither overstates nor forsakes the potential for salvation that lies in the garden. The term "Penitentiary" itself referred to the "penitent" in a religious sense, and while the efficacy of the original model was disproven (prisoners asked to sit silently in their cells and reflect on their crimes eventually went insane), there may have been some truth at least to the old saw that "Idle hands are the Devil's plaything." Photos, some of them very beautiful, are included, as well as some sketches. Recommended.
November 25, 2009
this is written at a pretty low reading level, repeats itself over and over and could be about a zillion times more interesting than it actually is. it's formatted like one of those "important topics" books for middle schoolers, which makes it even less appealing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews