New photos from solitary confinement
For five years we’ve visited Washington State prisons to document a project to bring restoration ecology and green jobs training into corrections centers. A few years back we photographed a solitary confinement facility that was thinking about bringing nature imagery into their window-less exercise yard. Nothing ever transpired in Washington State, but when Dr. Nalini Nadkarni spoke about it at a TED Talk, a corrections officer in Oregon liked the idea and things started to happen.
Now, at the Snake River Corrections Center outside of Boise, Idaho, inmates in solitary confinement can choose to go to the “Blue Room” to watch one of 30 nature documentaries during the 40 minutes they get outside of their cell each day. There are no windows or televisions available so these films are the inmates’ only opportunity to connect with the natural world. Do the films change behavior? The staff thinks so and Nalini is now helping them set up a study to find out. TIME magazine has already listed the Snake River Blue Room as one of the 25 Best Inventions of 2014.