A New Leash on Life

Today I attended the New Leash on Life graduation. "A New Leash on Life" is a program that allows inmates at Eastern and other minimum and maximum facilities to train dogs that are housed at animal shelters. The inmates receive training from actual dog trainers and then the inmates spend 10 weeks training the dogs to respond to commands before the dogs are adopted. Being a trainer is an actual job assignment that the inmates receive and they spend lots and lots of time training the dogs. There were three dogs that "graduated today" and five inmate trainers that had trained them(3 main ones, and 2 assistants.) There was a "performance" to demonstrate the obedience of the dogs and it was quite incredible how well the dogs obeyed. My boss says the program is great because it gives the inmates the opportunity to love something in a prison where there isn't much love. It was really cool to also hear what the inmates had to say about how the program had changed their lives. One inmate spoke today on how his interactions with the dogs he had trained had helped him learn how to better interact with people. He said he learned that he can't approach every person the same way because, like animals, each person is different and may need to be communicated to differently. My boss told me that he has seen how the inmate and other inmates have changed since starting the program. I think the program is great. Also, the program is funded by donations, not the state, so I don' t think the program is in danger of ending any time soon.

On another note, I spoke to someone today and I wanted to make a correction to my last post. If my understanding is correct, if a person is sentenced to life in prison under structured sentencing (a type of sentencing that came into use after January 1, 1994) then that person will stay in prison. The case that I had talked about earlier where the inmate was released from prison had received a life sentence under fair sentencing (the sentencing used prior to January 1, 1994). I would type more about the difference between the two types of sentencing but I'm not sure I have enough knowledge to do so. Even with this new information, I still think people with enough influence and connections could get out of their sentences. Additionally, with pressure on the Department of Corrections to house incoming inmates things could also change that could allow people out of a life sentence. That's just a hypothesis, though, I'm not sure if it would ever happen. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that life sentencing should still be looked at to ensure it as a possible, effective alternative to the death sentence.