Inmates in Lansing, Kansas are rescuing dogs from death row. Around a hundred of the Lansing Correctional Facility’s 2500 resident criminals are working to train homeless dogs to help them have a better chance at finding forever homes.
The Safe Harbor Prison Dog Program has been in operation in Lansing since August of 2004. In that time, the inmates have trained more than 1200 dogs who went on to find happy forever homes. These dogs are trained to be family companions, rather than service dogs — the training is much faster, which means more dogs are adopted and more can be trained.
On any given day, around a hundred inmates spend time working with fifty different dogs. A dog may work with a particular trainer four times a day, for fifteen minutes each time. The inmates tend to develop their own training methods — some use hand signals, for example, instead of verbal commands — and are proud to see their students find happy homes.
The program at the Lansing Correctional Facility isn’t the only such program in the country, nor was it the first. A Dominican nun started the first prison program for training service dogs in Washington state in 1981. Other programs — both for training service dogs and family pets — appeared across the country in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Maine, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin.
Prison officials and mental health experts agree: the program is good for both the inmates and the animals. For the prison residents, the companionship helps decrease depression and serves as a kind of therapy. Prison officials see that prison-based dog adoption programs help reduce violence among inmates.
And the dogs love the attention. Prisoners at the Lansing Correctional Facility make leashes and collars or crochet sweaters for their four-legged friends. Many prisoners who earn just a dollar a day working at their prison jobs spend their hard earned money on dog treats from the prison canteen.