In Panama, prisoners are rehabilitating their behavior and the nation’s rainforests at the same time through a plant nursery and recycling program supported by the Red Cross.
La Joyita prison was famous for its filth and squalor, but the EcoSólidos program, which has prisoners sorting glass, metal, and plastic for recycling, has helped remedy the reputation of the slammer and its inmates.
Meanwhile, the Sembrando Paz (sowing peace) vivarium uses composted material from EcoSólidos as fertilizer for its beds. It has over 16,000 seedlings with a market value of $20,000 and a productivity rate that could be the envy of any private garden.
The presence of the programs has eased tensions at La Joyita, which has seen reduced prison fighting, and dropped the recidivism rate of released inmates by 20%. Of those working in the dual program, none of them re-offended.
“I passed my time being busy. I wasn’t locked up all the time and the work was fun. It fills me with pride,” said William Morillo, 30, who spoke of his time served for drug trafficking in La Joyita with the Guardian.
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EcoSólidos was dreamed up by Franklin Ayón, an agronomist by training, who spent time in La Joyita and described some of the unbelievable conditions of filth the prisoners, and by extension the wardens and maintenance staff, were forced to live in.
Prisoners would sort and sell the rubbish to recycling companies, earning reduced sentences as a result of their labor. The prisoners liked the idea, so did the authorities, as did the prison gang leaders who made a temporary truce to allow the initiative to proceed.
Ten years on, 80% of all the waste in the prison is recycled, and living conditions have greatly improved from the days when the prisoners were forced to wear their bath towels over their heads and dinner plates at meal times to stop flies swarming on their food.
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At the vivarium, 1,500 tree seedlings are contributed every year to the Million Hectares Alliance, a program that seeks to replant one million hectares in Panama over the next 20 years.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Paraguay, El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, and Honduras are, according to the Guardian, all interested in replicating the program in their own correctional facilities.
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