As the budget squeeze continues, prison officials in Sacramento have designated San Quentin’s highly successful landscaping program as “not viable.”
Tony Leyva, the prison’s Vocational Landscaping instructor and a veteran of more than 20 years with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, has already received his layoff notice.
It seems as though keeping the program would be a no brainer, considering the state’s purported focus on reducing recidivism. Unless things change, the program will close in April 2011. Leyva expressed his disappointment for the students because it would only take another six months to allow approximately eight current students to complete the course with a “viable working knowledge.”
Ordinarily, when you hear the word “prison,” images of convicts and steel cells come to mind, not flower beds. Rarely do most people equate nature’s beauty and prison in the same sentence. However, if prisons do have a character or face, the individual responsible for this countenance would be its landscaper.
Everywhere you look around San Quentin, you can find tiny pockets of beauty in a desert of human desolation. Leyva maintains the landscaped face of San Quentin. Prior to working at the CDCR, Leyva operated his own landscaping business for 20 years, tending to properties owned by celebrities such as Clint Eastwood and Betty White.
“There is a satisfying feeling for me in giving something to those who are in prison who can’t be in the community doing this work through this program,” Leyva said in an interview. “Studies show that Vocational Landscaping leads the way in reducing inmate recidivism out of all the other vocational training classes in prison. Men who grew up mean and violent on the streets can change a lot when they begin to grow and nurture living things. You’ve taken a person with no regard for others to appreciating and developing life,” he added.
The men who are students in the Vocational Landscaping program echoed these powerful and inspirational words.
In March 2010, Leyva redesigned the vocational landscaping curriculum to better incorporate the existing knowledge and skills of the students as they transition through the program.
Many landscape projects are in progress around the prison at any given time. Students have been busy rebuilding parts of the facility, including the shade-house, where specific plant species grow, “hardscaping” pathways with bricks and stones, demolishing and clearing, and then redesigning and replanting garden areas around the vocational buildings.
“The state, however, has gutted the program and dumbed it down. Where we once produced a comprehensive program, Sacramento wants us to get ‘em in and get em’ out in a few months. I need at least 18 to 24 months to teach a complete program,” lamented Leyva.
“Our class has become a real team and includes all races. No prison politics means a true sense of freedom for the men. They develop a real sense of responsibility,” noted Leyva. “Landscaping is a viable trade that’s always in demand. It does not require a great deal of knowledge to enter the field. You can really learn as you go. I believe you never become an expert because there is so much to learn for the rest of your life.”
Leyva stated he started his own business at the age of 24, and it took about two years to build a solid week of 30 hours. Professional landscapers can earn as much as $100,000 a year, he said. Charging a client $60 to take care of their property twice a month averages about $30 for what amounts to a half hour of work.
According to Leyva, he could operate the program at no cost to the state. He did it for 2 1/2 years at Soledad State Prison through donations and support from industry and trade advisory members. “I could even make it work on a part-time basis,” he said. There is no shortage of students wanting to get into the program from H-Unit. Referrals come from teachers.
