WBEZ | prison

House lawmakers dispute interests of having crowded prisons

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:22:00 -0500

A controversial measure that would change how the U.S. Census counts Illinois prison inmates is advancing in Springfield.

The census counts Illinois’ prison inmates as residents of the town the prison is in, not the town they came from.

That population can affect a region’s eligibility for government money.

State House members narrowly approved a bill Wednesday saying the state will start keeping track of an inmates’ last known address for census purposes.The measure passed with the bare minimum of favorable votes, 60-55.

The bill’s passage upset Republican State Rep. Chad Hays from Danville, which has a prison that currently holds about 1,800 inmates, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

“I just lost 2,000 residents,” Hays said after the vote.

He sarcastically said he’ll start sending expenses to the City of Chicago for projects paid for with government money.

But State Rep. Monique Davis of Chicago suggested those who have prisons in their districts have a financial interest in keeping their prisons full.

“Let’s see how many enhanced penalty bills will pass, let’s see how many new bills were put in the criminal code if that population is no longer valuable to certain groups,” she said.

The measure still needs the support of the Senate.

Tony Arnold covers Illinois politics for WBEZ. Follow him @tonyjarnold.

Cook County inmates compete with Russian inmates in online chess match

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:32:00 -0500

Inside the Cook County Jail law library, 10 men were hunched over laptops playing online chess. A live video of their competitors, all Russian inmates, was projected on the wall.

Correctional Officer Patrice Faulkner roamed the room, encouraging players to take their time. “I’m nervous, because this is a big deal,” she said.

The program is run by Mikhail Korenman, who met chess legend Anatoly Karpov last year. The two chess players, along with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, hatched the idea for this tournament, which, according to Dart, is the first of its kind.

It was a hard match. The U.S. team was entirely from Cook County, while Russia chose players from across the country’s prison system.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said he had no delusions the match would solve current diplomatic issues between the U.S. and Russia. But he thought chess was a good activity for the men because it encouraged thinking ahead five or six moves, because you must consider the future impact of every action.

Warren Jackson, one of today’s players, said he had seen that change in himself, “I’m more proactive than reactive now. So I do think chess plays a heavy game when it comes down to you making decisions.”

In the end, Russia won. But Dalvin Brown, Chicago’s star player, won both his games. Karpov complimented his skills and the Russians said they will be sending him a chessboard.

Shannon Heffernan is a WBEZ reporter. Follow her @shannon_h.

Shrinking prison budgets eliminate educational opportunities

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:48:00 -0500

Marvin Marshall was 17 when he first went to prison for assault and battery. He dropped out of high school in junior year, made some bad choices and was arrested and imprisoned a few times.

“It was pretty boring,” Marshall said about prison. “Your day consists of walking around aimlessly, just talking, you just read, or tried to work out. You don’t have anything to occupy your time constructively, so you’re either going to hang out with people who are going do more crime and find out a better way to do better crime.”

About 60 percent of all prison inmates test below a sixth grade reading level. In The past, many states boasted good educational programs. Illinois was one of those states. East Moline and Vienna Correctional Center educated its prisoners. But budget cuts have affected ex-offenders’ educational opportunities.

Marshall had low reading skills. He wanted to take classes in prison, but couldn’t.

“While in prison, school was available but only to first offenders,” he said. “If you were there more than once wasn’t able to get into the [high school] in IDOC. If you were in the IDOC, currently doing a sentence, you had more than one case, some type of clinch where you couldn’t be in the GED class.”

After he got out of prison, Marshall turned his attention to the only thing he knew how to do.

“I just went back to crime, just surviving,” he said. “It’s a snowball effect. You get a bright idea and you’re back in jail. It’s been very difficult to adapt positively into society without education.”

Millions of people enter prison with low literacy every year. And in the past, as many as 900 former inmates left Illinois prisons with a bachelor’s degree each year. They did it by receiving need-based federal Pell grants.

But the Crime Control Act of 1994 barred future prisoners from getting financial assistance for bachelor’s degrees. And Malcolm Young says that changed the educational programming within the prison system.

Young studies prisoner reentry and employment at Northwestern University School of Law. He says in the past, former inmates had plenty of opportunities to learn. They told him services were not difficult to find.

“They described a prison system that was fairly rich with educational programs from secondary and post-secondary levels, vocational programs in a number of fields, and a lot of training and a lot of activities for younger inmates,” he said. “And these folks described to me coming through the system, maturing, getting their lives together, and coming out, making parole or being released and doing alright.”

Young says community college involvement with prisons has reduced dramatically: more than 80 percent of educational programs involving community colleges have disappeared.

“I’ve heard the current system, the current (Department of Correction’s) programming described as kind of a desert compared to what it used to be in the old days,” he said. “You can go into a number of Illinois prisons and still see the shops or locations where these programs were taught, but now they’re empty.”

Young says it wasn’t just a change in prison finances. It was a change in mindset too.

He says as part of a national trend to get “tough on crime” directors of the Illinois Department of Corrections shifted the emphasis from rehabilitation and program work to keeping people locked up.

Deborah Denning, chief of program and support services for the Illinois Department of Corrections, says they still have educational programs now but many come as a result of thinking creatively.

“If we can't find the colleges that will come in and help us to create those literacy programs then we have to use the resources within the facility, and look for those individuals who are capable of teaching others and want to do that,” she said.

Young says that’s not enough. Prisons are overcrowded. And many inmates are there with short sentences.

“It’s almost fictional that it’s going to provide the kind of benefit that we really want,” Young said. “If you were an educator, what would you do in six months that would really make a difference? Whatever it is, we’re not doing it.”

That leaves non-profits and places like halfway houses to pick up the slack. Marshall turned to St. Leonard’s Ministries in Chicago after his time in prison. He earned his high school diploma there, and is now taking a college prep course nearby.

Neal Portis, 30, lives at St. Leonard’s Ministries in Chicago. He says the educational services offered there have made all the difference in his life after prison.

“When people get back out here into this society they coming out with a chip on their shoulder,” he said “They’re coming back out the same way that they went in.”

Portis improved his writing skills in St. Leonard’s classes. Now he’s writing about his past experiences for fun.

“When I write my little screenplays, it’s safe, no one’s being harmed,” he said. “Because I’m using something that was at one point a negative thing and I just turned it into something positive. I just want to see how this turn out. I ain’t got nothing to lose, so I’m going to keep writing.”

Conrad Black released from prison

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:15:00 -0500

A U.S. official says former media mogul Conrad Black is back in Canada after being released from prison Friday morning. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Nestor Yglesias says further details about Black's arrival, including his location, will be released later.

Black left a federal prison outside Miami early Friday after serving about three years for defrauding investors.

He originally had been sentenced to about six years after he was convicted in 2007 of defrauding investors in Hollinger International Inc. He was released two years later on bail so he could pursue an appeal, which was partially successful. Last September he reported back to prison after a judge ordered him to serve another year.

The 67-year-old Black is a former member of the British House of Lords. His media empire once included the Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Telegraph of London, The Jerusalem Post and small papers across the U.S. and Canada.

Blagojevich gets new date to report to prison

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:01:00 -0600

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has a new date to report to prison.

Blagojevich will have to report to prison by March 15th, instead of mid-February. His defense attorneys said in court Tuesday that the date is based on when the family can sell their home on Chicago's North Side.

"The Blagojevich's are hoping to sell the family home. They've lowered the price and Mr. Blagojevich wanted to assist the family in moving into the new house," said Sheldon Sorosky, Blagojevich's defense attorney.

Federal Judge James Zagel sentenced Blagojevich to 14 years in federal prison last week. The judge had told Blagojevich he would have to begin serving his time behind bars in February.

Blagojevich's attorneys also requested that the former governor serve his time at a low-security prison in Colorado. Judge Zagel said he would recommend that Blagojevich be sent to Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Englewood in Littleton, Colorado, 15 miles southwest of Denver.

Sorosky said he wasn't sure why Blagojevich chose that facility, but he says the family is not planning a move to Colorado.

It'll be up to the Federal Bureau of Prisons to decide where Blagojevich will serve his sentence.

Jurors at two trials convicted Blagojevich on 18 corruption-related charges.

Weekender with Alison Cuddy

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:00:00 -0600

For most of us Thanksgiving means turkey for dinner. But many use the holiday to ponder deeper relationships to the big, meaty bird. These days some folks go the extra mile to make feasting on the bird more meaningful. Maybe they agree with Benjamin Franklin - who in jest deemed turkey a 'more respectable bird' than America's national symbol, the eagle? But why stop at turkey? The birds are everywhere! Angry Birds, the popular mobile app, is now entering the stuffed toy market. And take a look at this creepy mash-up of Angry Birds and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. If that revenge scenario has you regretting the feast you just consumed check out Peggy MacNamara, artist in residence at The Field Museum. MacNamara’s not only drawn many of the bird specimens held by the Museum - 18 of her own paintings are also on permanent display.

Other picks for the weekend are below. And big thanks to The Chicago Film Archive for providing the vintage sounds of Chicago's holiday season (The Big Downtown Christmas, Charles Sharp, 1962).

Here are Weekender's top 6 picks:

1. Boys Noize

Friday 10pm-4am

The Mid 306 N Halsted

2. Films about the Middle East

Three films about Americans' Knowledge of the Middle East

Saturday 6pm

Southside Hub of Production 5638 S Woodlawn Ave, Hyde Park

See a trailer for one of the films, Desert in the Coffeehouse

3. Brian Babylon

Saturday 8pm and 10pm

Vocalo's Brian Babylon hosts hilarious Stand Up at The Comedy Bar

157 W Ontario St (Ontourage)

See more of Brian's comedy here

4. Prison

Photographs by Lloyd DeGrane

Friday 9-6 Saturday 10-4 Gage Gallery 18 S. Michigan

Hear more from Lloyd DeGrane here

5. YAWN

Saturday 8pm

w/ The Kooks and The Postelles

The Vic Theatre 3145 N Sheffield Ave

6. Christkindlmarket

Friday-Saturday 11am-9pm Sunday 11am-8pm

Traditional German American Holiday Market and Chicago Institution

Daley Plaza 50 W Washington St

Click here to subscribe to the Weekender podcast.

Capturing life behind bars

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:40:00 -0600

The reality of life inside prison is one that most won’t know but photographer Lloyd DeGrane set out to capture this reality. His collection of photos—Prison: Photographs by Lloyd DeGrane—currently on display at Roosevelt University’s Gage Gallery. DeGrane’s photographs detail the journey from Cook County Jail and into maximum-security at Stateville Correctional Center. But the pictures were only one part of the story: The writings and poetry of former Stateville inmate Simon, aka “Sam G,” Gutierrez accompanied DeGrane’s photos. Eight Forty-Eight recently spoke with DeGrane and Gutierrez at Gage Gallery.

The photos will be on display at Roosevelt University’s Gage Gallery through Feb. 4.

Music Button: Ilhan Ersahin's Istanbul Sessions, "Night Ride", from the album Night Rider, (Nublu)

Ground Shifters: ‘Locked-up, but Organized’ in La Paz, Bolivia

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:02:00 -0500

This week, Jean Friedman-Rudovsky presents a five-part series featuring stories of women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. It’s called Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds.

Today, we travel to a women’s prison in La Paz, Bolivia. Rather than a high-security industrial complex, this prison takes the form of a miniature city — with shops, businesses, a school and even a union. We find out how its female inmates are exercising their rights to organize and improve their communal home.

Just past the security screening rooms, the women’s Central Correctional Facility in La Paz, Bolivia expands into an open air courtyard. It looks like anything but a prison. Women – not wearing jumpsuits or uniforms of any kind – manage kiosks and stalls, or sit knitting in front of classrooms.

Young kids, who live inside with their moms, run down passageways and weave around my legs out into the yard. Briseida Paredes is a wide-eyed beauty who looks decades younger than a grandmother of two. S he says the prison is designed like a hacienda or spacious ranch.

"The only security we have are the four towers and the door," says Briseida, through a translator. "Over there are the shared dormitories. Also, there are a variety of courses offered for inmates for free like accounting, baking, knitting, embroidery. There’s a laundry facility—we offer that service for people outside the jail. There are those of us who wash dishes, wash clothes, clean the classrooms. Everyone makes their own way here."

That’s lot to take in. No individual cells and women who earn their own keep inside. Almost nothing meshes with my idea of prison. Especially Breseida’s title: President of the Consejo de Delegadas, or delegate council, a representative body most akin to an inmate union.

"Of course, we have to work jointly with the national penitentiary system as well as the local government," she says. "Also with the prison health system. I’m not the boss here. There is a warden and everything has to be done according to procedure. In this coordinated way, we address judicial matters, as well as medical attention for the kids; any and all internal issues inside the facility."

13 reps elected by the areas where they sleep, six more at large – to be in charge of education, work and recreation. Then, a Vice President and La Presidente. They run in yearly elections. One inmate, one vote, via secret ballot. Despite what Briseida says, these elected representatives make the prison hum. They hold classes and help inmates stay with their schooling. They arrange for donations from charity organizations for the kids, and make sure the businesses run smoothly.

They even coordinate soccer matches with visitors. Lucia Choque is a dorm delegate. She’s indigenous Aymara. Two thick long braids hang down her back.

"My name is Lucia Choque and I’ve been here for one year and one month," she says. "I’m the representative from dorm 11. Each dormitory delegate helps to organize the activities like the Christmas communal meals and decorations. Sometimes the new girls don’t understand how this all works. They think they are still on the outside but things are different here. I explain that in the dorms, they can’t bring in outside bags, can’t bring in food or anything like that. They don’t always listen so I have to be on top of them, reminding them again and again."

Hours past roll call, the women and kids are free to roam until 8 clock tonight, when they must be back in the dorms. Briseida is working—the prisoners are making sweet bread to raise money for infrastructure improvements and she’s managing the process. It’s clear that these women find nothing unusual about being organized.

We’re in Bolivia – where unionization is a foundation of society. Everyone—from the shoe shine boys, to the farmers, to the domestic workers, have their representative organization.

"Everywhere around the world, people organize: in the workers unions, in professional associations, in mother’s clubs. Why not in a jail?," Briesida asks. "We, too, are a part of society. We have needs just like everyone else. Teachers demanding a raise protest and make themselves heard. This is the same thing, but we ask for better food, better medical facilities, better infrastructure. Since we are part of society, we have the same rights as those on the outside. The only right that’s been taken away from us is freedom of movement. Every other one is intact."

Intact is right — and these women don’t take them for granted.

"About a month and a half ago we had a strike because we only had 50 gas canisters for cooking and those 50 weren’t enough for the prison’s three kitchens," Briseida recalls. "So what did we do first? We followed procedure and sent a request letter. That was ignored so we called a state of emergency and refused to stand for roll call. The last resort is the hunger strike. At first, we had about 30 women striking. During a strike, you can’t stand for roll call or work. The only thing we drank was coca and chamomile tea and we only ate throat lozenges. That strike lasted 4 days and now we have 75 gas canisters."

Briseida makes it sound so easy. But it’s hard being a leader in this environment. Constant threats from the guards and gangs or factions form easily. You have to know how to deal with all kinds of personalities, says la Presidenta.

"Here there are all people from all over," she points out. "There are some from the rural areas. Others are educated professionals so you have to mediate their different life experiences and perspectives. But all humans, whether free or in prison, learn new things until the day we die. We always keep on learning."

Finding a voice, cultivating a leader

Some of that learning comes through being a delegada. On the outside, none of the current reps were political women. Virginia Condori is young and soft-spoken, and is dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Like 80% of Bolivia’s prison population, she’s a “preventiva” – meaning she’s being held preventatively while waiting for trial. Legally there’s a 6 month cap on preventative detention. But that’s not reality. She’s been here for over year and has yet to come before a judge.

Yet, she’s not bitter. Instead, she’s productive. She’s working on her accounting degree and now she’s the representative for education—a post she says taught her more lessons than the classroom.

"One of those has been that I’ve lost my fear of speaking in front of others, of expressing myself," she says. "I remember the first time. Someone told me – you have to make an announcement about a human rights workshop and you have to tell everyone during roll call. I stepped out to give the announcement and I turned red. You know you stand in front of everyone and all the compañeras are looking at you. I thought to myself, maybe I’m not saying it right. But with time I lost that fear. This has all helped me to develop, speak more often, express myself better. I wasn’t this kind of person before."

It’s this personal evolution that may matter almost as much as winning a strike. Nicole Zamora Paredes is Briseida’s middle child. Only 20 years old herself, she brought her toddler son in for a visit. She’s got her mother’s eyes, and the same strong sense of self. She says the delegada system is the best rehabilitation opportunity the prison offers.

"Years ago my mom was immature," Nicole recalls. "She liked to be out dancing, out wherever with her friends. Not anymore. She is a much more mature person now. This has allowed her to reflect, study, understand family, to value many things. I think my mom is doing great. She has changed a lot and for the better."

This personal growth is small compensation for the fact that this is still prison. No union can change that. Women must walk past the foul-smelling solitary confinement chamber dozens of times daily. Guards beat and bribe the prisoners at will. And of course, while many of these women still live with their kids, they miss those treasured parent moments—like watching your child graduate from primary school, or playing together in a park. Life is a concrete hacienda.

Inmates in this facility, like most around the country, are mainly here for petty drug charges. Others are in for contraband—bringing in untaxed second hand clothes or cars to sell in open air markets. Debt too can land you some time. Women have an added complication—their husbands exploits. You’d never see a man locked up for his wife’s crimes, but the opposite happens.

"I am here because for being an accomplice, I guess they call it," says Lucia. "They killed my husband and my son is in San Pedro prison. But they don’t let me leave here, not even to visit my son. They’ve taken everything of mine. It’s been a year and one month. I am not sentenced yet so I don’t know when I’ll ever get out. There are so many of us, preventivas. There is no quick justice here. I’ve had 5 different lawyers, 2 of them took my money and did nothing. Now I don’t have anything left."

Today, visitors are streaming in. But not for everyone. So many women here are shunned by the world the minute they are swallowed by these high walls. I see Virginia’s sadness as she watches Briseida play with her grandson. She tells me she doesn’t have a family. Yet again, the education delegada finds the positive.

"Here is where you find your real friends," says Virginia. "Outside, people just say to you: how much do you have, how much are you worth. When you have money, everyone is your friend, your family. When something bad happens to you, no-one is there for you economically or emotionally. Here is where you find your real family because we support each other in the best and worst of times. We motivate each other. Sometimes we cry and we console one another. Or sometimes you cry and they cry along with you."

I wonder if Briseida’s and Virginia’s and Lucia’s personal growth, has to do with the their insulated female world. These intimate bonds, among only women, lead to the extraordinary. It’s getting on in the afternoon and things are winding down. The aroma of dinner preparations wafts down the passageways. Briseida is saying goodbye to her family. Normally non-chalant about her organization’s achievements, she gets reflective, sharing one last story.

"A few months ago, there was a problem with a warden here," says Briseida. "She had mismanaged money from the laundry service and that money is ours. She wanted to shut us up about it. We have to have a full revolt to get her out of here because it’s not right that people come here and live off the work of the prisoners and abuse their authority. I was chained in my cell, they didn’t let me go to the bathroom or receive visits. I spent 15 days in the hole. They completely violated my rights. We demanded a hearing and I was let go and then everything turned around. Now the warden has a pending charge against her via the Ministry of Corruption and Transparency. Imagine that! Where in any other part of the world do you see a prisoner, a delinquent as they call us, launch a case against a warden? It’s like a utopia. It’s illogical. That shows that we have rights and values, even as prisoners we have our principles. And especially us as women because it’s us women who continue to be mothers, pillars of our families. I mean we’re the ones who always wear the pants in this world, right?"

The story is part of a weeklong series on the lives of women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico called Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds. The series is a collaboration between WBEZ and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media at Columbia College-Chicago.

Series Executive Producer, Steve Bynum. Series Producer/Creative Advisor, Jane Saks

Hunger strike puts focus on Calif. prison conditions

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:36:00 -0500

It appears that a three-week hunger strike by prisoners in California has ended. Officials with the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation say inmates have started eating again after some of their demands were met. Chief among those demands was an end to long-term solitary confinement.

Advocates for prisoners say they can't confirm that the strike has actually ended.

Solitary Confinement Criticized

Cruz Gallegos' brother was convicted of murder 26 years ago. Right now he's in California's Pelican Bay State Prison, near the Oregon border. Gallegos says he's been in solitary confinement for 20 years.

"They are supposed to rehabilitate him; that's not rehabilitation, it's not, it's inhumane, it's cruel," Gallegos says. "It's a punishment. He's already in prison; this is a prison within a prison."

Gallegos' brother is being held in a Secure Housing Unit. Prisoners are kept isolated in small cells 22 and a half hours a day and aren't allowed phone calls or visits. Officials say the SHU is for the most violent criminals and identified prison gang members.

For nearly a month, family members and prisoner rights advocates have been holding rallies in support of the hunger strikers.

Dolores Canales was at one earlier this week in downtown Los Angeles. Canales' son John, who is in jail for murder, has been in Pelican Bay's SHU for 10 years.

"He has not had any human contact whatsoever, he has not had a phone call," Canales says.

Strike Involved Thousands

Hundreds of prisoners started refusing to eat on July 1. At its peak, the hunger strike spread to more than a third of the state's facilities, with up to 6,600 prisoners participating.

Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for state's prisons, says officials are willing to meet some demands. Inmates will now get wool hats in cold weather, wall calendars and some educational opportunities. And Thornton says officials will review gang management and isolation policies. She says under current policy, someone is only put in the isolation unit after careful review.

"An investigator has to take all the information and it has to be from multiple sources," Thornton says. "You can't just look at one tattoo and say, 'Oh, that person is a gang member.'"

But advocates say the policies are arbitrary and getting out is nearly impossible. They say prisoners must renounce gang activity and provide information about other members. But Gloria Romero, a former state senator, says that's not an option.

"In the world of prison rules, to name names — essentially to snitch — is basically marking someone for death. You don't do that," Romero says.

Romero authored several prison reform laws during her 12 years in the legislature. She says keeping prisoners in severe isolation has done little to break up the state's violent gangs.

"It's a failed policy; it doesn't work," Romero says. "It hasn't worked for well over a decade."

Prison officials disagree and point to recent indictments of gang members as proof. A spokeswoman for the prisons says a review of isolation practices is under way and further changes will be seen in the coming months.

Restoring nature - and lives - on Chicago's Southeast Side

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 05:39:00 -0500

Chicago’s developed a reputation as a green city. And a lot of attention’s gone in making the emerald span of lakeside parks shine. But the city’s also working to improve less well-known areas, including Hegewisch Marsh on the far Southeast Side. The marsh is an ecologically valuable wetland, but it was also a dumping ground for big-industry. One twist is that the people improving this long-neglected place are people society sometimes forgets.

Paul Hickenbottom spent last weekend at Hegewisch Marsh, a 130-acre wetland at 130th Street and Torrence Avenue - near the Ford Motor Plant. His job? Pulling out weeds and invasive, harmful plants.

HICKENBOTTOM: I’m a restoration tech. We do restoration work. We do restoration work. We remove invasive species, cut down trees, plant I.D.

Hickenbottom’s part of a year-old project called Green Corp Calumet. It’s put on through Chicago’s Department of Environment, and the purpose is to provide forestry training, especially to people who have a hard time landing steady work. That includes people who with criminal records, people like Hickenbottom.

HICKENBOTTOM: I had 20 straight years. First Degree murder.
PUENTE: How old were you when you were convicted of murder?
HICKENBOTTOM: I was 25. Young and stupid. That’s an episode of my life that I assume forgot.

But it’s hard to forget because that conviction hampers Hickenbottom’s ability to hold onto to a job. Hickenbottom got out of prison five years ago. He took a stab janitorial work, and then delivering food. But neither stuck.

Now, he’s 48 years old and says maybe he’s just now finding his calling - doing work for Green Corp Calumet.

HICKENBOTTOM: I never thought this would be for me but it grows on you. I would love to stay in the green field. I want to go into the nursery to bring a plant up from birth and watch it flourish.

Zach Taylor is a guy who likes to hear these kinds of comments. Taylor heads of Green Corp Calumet, which happens to be funded by the U.S. Forestry Service. Trainees receive 18 months of on the job experience. Taylor says participants are paid, but there’s an even more important benefit: they might have a chance to do restoration work, for good.

TAYLOR: There’s probably four or five contractors in the Chicagoland region that do strictly ecological restoration work. There are also a lot of wetland mitigation projects. Anytime you fill in a wetland, it needs to be restored and replaced in some way. These type of companies come in and do that.

ELMORE: I rode past here on a daily basis. I didn’t have a clue what was over here. I’ve lived in this area for 30 years and never, ever knew what this was.

That’s Brenda Elmore, who’s also helping to restore Hegewisch Marsh. She spent five years in prison for selling drugs. Elmore’s been out two years now. She tried a career in cosmetology but fell out of it.

Elmore says she’s not disappointed, though. She says working in the Hegewisch Marsh has a calming effect on her -- even on bad days.

ELMORE: You can be upset when you come to work but just coming out to places like this into the marsh, it’s calming to see deer. You don’t see deer in the urban area. We’ve seen all kinds of things out here. You know like snakes. I’m not very found of snakes but I’m getting a little better.

Elmore says she wishes she had been exposed to nature earlier in life.

ELMORE: I couldn’t image ever being a part of that I’m a part of now. And it has totally changed my life.

Now that she’s found this experience in nature, Elmore hopes she’ll never let it go. Elmore and the other Green Corp Calumet trainees will wrap up their work by the end of this summer.