Innovative juvenile corrections program is growing roots
On a rainy fall afternoon, Brian Emerson wanders through the school garden at the Grow Academy where he helps incarcerated boys connect with nature, tend vegetables and grow life skills.
“The idea of planting a seed, watching it grow… there's something pretty deep in that, as far as understanding how to care for something and succeed in it,” he said as he examined peppers the students had grown this summer.
Emerson is the director of urban agricultural education at Rooted, a Madison nonprofit focused on developing urban community connections through agriculture and food access. He also works at the Grow Academy, a low-security residential youth center outside of Fitchburg that is part of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections’ network of juvenile facilities.
The center provides education, mental health treatment and support services to boys ages 14-18 who are involved in Wisconsin’s youth incarceration system. Since its founding in June 2014, the program has graduated a total of 177 boys, according to the Department of Corrections.
Administrators at the center have referred to it as a “first chance” or a “last chance,” meaning that the boys at the center have either been referred there as an alternative to a higher security juvenile prison setting or are receiving step-down services after leaving such a facility but before reentering their communities.
Now, the residential center in Dane County hopes to expand its capacity to serve more young people and set them on similar paths to success.
https://captimes.com/news/government/innovative-juvenile-corrections-program-is-growing-roots/article_fa0c3e36-a6d8-471e-8a3d-ecc1f072d3e8.html
THIS is what a juvenile corrections facility should look like, not a prison!