NCJ Number
206467
Journal
Smithsonian Volume: 35 Issue: 5 Dated: August 2004 Pages: 62-68
Date Published
August 2004
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article presents the history, operation, and effects of the innovative program Puppies Behind Bars (PBB), through which selected inmates in six prisons in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut train dogs to determine their potential to serve as seeing-eye dogs for the blind.
Abstract
The program was started in 1997 by Gloria Stoga at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison for women in Westchester County, NY. Inmates who raise puppies are carefully selected. Applicants must have a clean disciplinary record for at least a year, and they are further screened and interviewed by prison officials, by Stoga, and by other dog trainers. Two raisers, a primary caretaker and a backup, are assigned to each puppy. The inmates, who live with their pups in a housing unit separate from the general prison population, take the dogs practically everywhere. Based on a 6-hour training session once a week, the raisers learn how to teach their pups to climb stairs, come when called, and to neither bark nor beg. A little more than half of the puppies raised by inmates become guide dogs for the blind. Most of the puppies are supplied by Guiding Eyes at an average of about 35 a year. Not all raisers stay or are kept in the program. Some quit under the difficulties of the job, and others are terminated because they will not comply with training rules. There is no evidence that the program has so far made any perceptible impact on the recidivism rate of participants after their release; however, many of the raisers credit the program with giving them a sense of accomplishment and teaching them to care about someone other than themselves. The inmate raisers also provide a service that has a significant impact on the lives of the blind individuals who receive dogs through PBB.