Prison Dog Adoption Programs

Several prison dog adoption programs are run every year in prisons across the United States.

Safe Harbor for Pets

Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, a medium-maximum prison home to about 2,500 inmates as of 2006, has been operating an inmate dog training program since late 2004, called "Safe Harbor for Pets." At Safe Harbor roughly 50 dogs are trained by roughly 100 inmates daily, readying them for adoption within as early as two weeks.

The dogs selected for the program are dogs previously considered unfit for adoption; in this way, the program essentially operates as a rescue operation as well as an inmate training program. The dogs selected come from all over the state, but most of them from close to the facility. The goal of the program is to transform the pets into well-behaved, and, hopefully, domesticated pets.

Dr. Joe Scroppo, a former prison psychologist at Riker’s Island director of North Shore University Hospital's forensic psychiatry program in N.Y., praised the program's positive effect on depression and mental health for inmates. It is one of the few incentives and positive reinforcements provided to inmates that does not include the expeditition of release or the collection of extra pay.

Applications for adoption by the general public cost about $125. See http://www.safeharborprisondogs.com for more information.

Inmate Dog Alliance Project

Also operating since 2004 is the Inmate Dog Alliance Project of Idaho, another prison dog adoption program that operates inside the minimum-security Idaho Correctional Complex. It is the oldest prison dog adoption program in the state. A similar program opened up shortly after at the maximum security complex, as well.

At ICC, 24 of the 80 inmates in B Pod are designated as dog handlers, who work in pairs with one another to train the dogs. In B Pod the dogs are free to roam without leashes. After the dog program was introduced, the Pod quickly became the cleanest and quietest Pod in the prison.

The program has been so successful that inmates have been able to withdraw from their anxiety and depression medications. Once eight weeks of training passes, the dog undergoes the Canine Good Citizen Test, and if the dog passes, he or she gets adopted. The adoption rate for graduating dogs is 100 percent.

The inmates themselves who volunteer to be trainers must not have been convicted of animal cruelty, but otherwise the conviction history is unrestricted.

See http://www.idahohumanesociety.org/page.cfm/idapi.