Live Green Tennessee: 'Prison Farming'

Source:Live Green TN- Sergeant Doug Griffith: Tennessee Department of Corrections.

"We think its great news that several Tennessee Prisons are choosing to Go Green, and Live Green Tennessee recently visited Sergeant Doug Griffith of the Tennessee Department of Corrections. 

Griffith explained a recycling program that turns leftover food from five prisons into rich, fertile mulch thats then used on a 100-acre kitchen garden. The inmates working the farm save the prison system—and you, the taxpayer—money...

But more important is the responsibility, the fresh air, and the opportunity to learn practical, employable and life-long skills to help trustees adjust to life upon release." 

From Live Green Tennessee

Prisons are obviously designed to punish people who commit felons in America and who hurt innocent people either intentionally or by being very irresponsible, like drunk driving. But that punishment should be about taking the inmates freedom away and getting them out of society as long as they represent a threat to society. 

Punishment can't be the only thing that prisons should be about, otherwise they and the inmates simply become too expensive for taxpayers. The time that inmates do in prison should also be productive for taxpayers, the prisons and staff itself, but the inmates themselves, because most of them eventually leave prison and return to society. Educating our inmates and putting them to work doing real jobs and like producing food for the prisons, is a great way to rehabilitate the inmates in prison.