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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah State Prison is a couple miles out into the desert, past the Salt Lake City airport, at the end of a dead-end road. In the middle of the hot, dusty concrete complex, the female inmates are planting a garden.
"A lot of girls have been working hard and pushing hard to have something like this," inmate Kassie Tolman said.
The garden is a community space where women who have proven they can manage themselves can spend their free time. Facility staff hope the garden will help women develop skills and improve mental health.
"When we're able to do stuff together, it brings down violence, drug issues and helps people be sober," Tolman said. "Whatever I can do to get involved, I do it."
On Friday, dozens of women rolled up sod and loaded it onto trucks, making way for compost, trees, lavender and vegetables. When they needed a break, they sat under canopies with bottles of water. Some women chased after a small vole they had unearthed with their shovels.
Deputy Warden Derick Zorn saw how much a community garden helped inmates at the Utah State Prison and wrote a proposal to bring one to the correctional facility. He thinks the garden will not only be a good emotional outlet but will contribute to the facility's culinary arts program.
Along with culinary arts, the prison also offers a horticulture program and options to get degrees through Salt Lake Community College. Programs like these remind inmates of their life before prison and their potential life after, Kimberly Cruz Romero said.
"Having some sort of normalcy, it helps," Cruz Romero said. "You can use this time to better yourself."
Marilee Gardner, who has been incarcerated since she was 16, says the garden helps her grow and learn there's more to life than the facility, where she's spent eight years.
"It gives a sense of belonging and hope, that we're not just looked at as numbers," Gardner said.
In Shellaine Williams' view, the garden helps inmates feel more compassionate. Gardening is meditative and connects her to her senses, Williams said.
"You learn how to be human again, because sometimes you detach from that part of yourself," she said.
Over time, the garden will become an oasis in a sea of concrete, and a respite in a challenging environment.
