Each weekend, Scripps student Eva DeLair ’10 leaves behind her idyllic home at the College and spends her mornings at the California Institute for Women, the largest women’s prison in Southern California. Joining her are a half-dozen other Scripps students who are involved in the “Prison Garden Project” at the Chino institution, 35 miles from Claremont.
The Prison Garden Project was initiated by class of 2009 alumnae Hannah Segal and Adrian Hodos, along with the Five-College Criminal Justice Network, a group of Claremont Colleges students working to raise awareness about prison-related issues. The founders envisioned this project as both a way to introduce fresh food to the prison population and a way to provide a therapeutic space for the incarcerated women.
A religious studies and political science dual major, Eva has long been interested in issues of humanity. Growing up with a pastor for a father, Eva and her dad had discussions about the criminal justice system. Eva has a particular desire to explore the perception that those who are incarcerated are somehow “less than human.”
The Scripps College students are joined by a dozen from the facility. While the women are planting and tending to the tomatoes, greens, and garlic that provide welcomed freshness to the prison fare, the students and inmates discuss religion and the criminal justice system and share life stories, book recommendations, and pictures of family members. “It’s really just an excuse to visit with the women,” Eva confesses.
Most of the “regulars” from the prison are serving life sentences. They are bewildered that the college students choose to spend time at the facility but the benefits clearly cut both ways. “I’ve found my passion doing this,” Eva says. After graduation, she hopes to complete an AmeriCorps national service program and ultimately to become a lawyer specializing in issues of reentry and parole law.