Post by copperkid3 on Mar 7, 2016 11:34:51 GMT -5
A program training wild horses has given inmates in Arizona new faith in themselves.
"Here is an opportunity to give something back to somebody who has either fallen on hard times or certainly found themselves in the crosshairs of the law,"
said Raul Ortiz, deputy chief patrol agent of the Rio Grande Valley Sector, where a herd of about 40 horses, with 30 riders, made approximately 8,000 apprehensions last year.
"It's not just a tool for us to use out there in the field. It's got bigger implications for the organization and for the country."
'Silver Lining'
The unique program is part of a multi-million-dollar industry, where the captive labor of prisoners produces products from farmed tilapia to body armor.
It is the result of a partnership between the nation's largest federal law enforcement agency, Customs and Border Protection, the Bureau of Land Management,
and state correctional agencies from Colorado to Arizona. But rather than profit, the program was conceived as a way to humanely manage wild horse herds.
Image: Border Patrol Rio Grande Texas
Two young men from Mexico are apprehended by mounted members of the Border Patrol after swimming across the Rio Grande into Texas. Hannah Rappleye
In addition to selling trained horses to the Border Patrol, prisoners also train horses for private adoption. The BLM estimates over 58,000 wild horses and burros
roam public land from Nevada to Oregon, their lineage a mix of Spanish stock and domestic breeds. The federally protected herds remain a national treasure,
a symbol of our wild past, but their numbers have to be carefully managed, as population growth has outpaced the ability of public rangeland to support herds.
The program wasn't necessarily conceived as a way to rehabilitate prisoners, said Randy Helm, the wild horse and burro inmate program supervisor for the Arizona
Department of Corrections. But the nature of horsemanship, and of the wild horses themselves inevitably changes the lives of many prisoners who come through the program.
"Some of them come in with situations in life where I think they can connect a little more to where that horse is," Helm said.
"That horse has to learn to adapt to an environment to be successful. That horse has to learn to deal with its past.
The horse has to learn to deal with its fear….I'll try to emphasize to the guys out here, if you fail to learn from these horses,
you're missing a great opportunity, because they can teach us a lot about ourselves."
www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/changing-lives-prisoners-train-wild-horses-arizona-n532036