Beneath the hot summer sun, a man convicted of voluntary manslaughter wiped sweat from his brow as he took a pair of pruning shears to a strawberry patch.
Another felon, convicted of murder, joined in a few minutes later. Together, they filled a basket with clippings and moved on to the next row of produce.
It’s harvest season at Perry Correctional Institution, a maximum security penitentiary in Pelzer, where violent offenders are processing their summer crop to make way for the fall foliage.
“I would sleep right here in between these strawberries if I could,” one of the inmates said. “This is the best therapy you could possibly have.”
Prison gardens are growing across South Carolina Department of Corrections facilities as a means of rehabilitating inmates who are looking to better themselves. The horticulture program at Perry is touting its successes with inmates and food production, while a program at Tyger River Correctional Institution in Enoree is just now taking roots.
Inmates say they find that a little dirt on their fingertips gives them a renewed sense of self-worth. The inmates’ transformation is spurring prison personnel to remind others to think twice about ruling them out.
“If I had known this when I was out there, it would’ve been different. I would’ve been planting instead of being around the wrong crowd,” said another inmate at Perry, also convicted of murder, while potting cornstalk plants inside a greenhouse. “This teaches you the value of life. Not only of plant life but of human life as well, too, you know?”
State law doesn’t protect identities of convicts, but SCDC has held to a policy not to disclose inmates’ identities for the last several years, according to Clark Newsom, a spokesman for the agency. The policy aims to protect inmate safety while in prison and be sensitive to victims who may not want to see their offender in the media, Newsom said in an email.
The gardens are designed to give convicts a purpose while serving time, a skill for when they go back into society and a plethora of fresh ingredients to spice up a prison menu.
SCDC officials say inmates can choose to stay idle in a cell or find a way to pass the time through hard work. They say the latter option is one way to cut recidivism and give inmates a chance at success on the outside.
“That’s how they want to do their time. That’s their therapy, digging dirt, weeding out beds,” Perry’s associate warden, Stephen Claytor, said. “These guys will work their tails off.”
Sprouting new roots
The production at Perry is considered the “gold standard” by other institutions across the state.
Perry broke ground on its ever-expanding garden project in 2009, though a basic “ground maintenance” program began not long after the facility opened in 1981. It was the second institution in the state to start such a program behind the Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia.
Now 17 facilities out of the 24 statewide have their own gardening programs including the Tyger River Correctional Institution in Enoree, which hired a horticulturist in July.