About Us

Our Mission

The Sustainable Prisons Project is a partnership of the Washington State Department of Corrections and The Evergreen State College. Our mission is to reduce the environmental, economic and human costs of prisons by training offenders and correctional staff in sustainable practices. Equally important, we bring science into prisons by helping scientists conduct ecological research and conserve biodiversity through projects with offenders, college students and community partners.

Our Vision

This union of ideas and activities – and people inside and outside prison walls – creates a collaborative, intellectually stimulating environment in which incarcerated men and women play key roles in conservation and advancing scientific knowledge. We encourage teamwork, mutual respect and a stewardship ethic among individuals who typically have little or no access to nature or opportunities in science and sustainability. Our vision is not only to save tax dollars and natural resources, but also to help offenders rebuild their lives for the benefit of all.

Our History

The Department of Corrections (DOC) is responsible for more than 16,000 inmates in 15 prisons in Washington – a commitment that draws heavily from the state’s natural resources and costs taxpayers more than $1 billion annually. In 2002, DOC responded to Governor Locke’s directive to enhance the sustainability of its prisons by conserving energy and water, limiting and recycling waste and constructing green facilities. Concurrently, Evergreen began pilot activities at the Cedar Creek Corrections Center to link scientists and conservation specialists with a non-traditional audience – incarcerated offenders.

The need to expand science and sustainability into new territory led to the Sustainable Prisons Project. Initiated on July 1, 2008, via an Interagency Agreement, the project is funded by a two-year $298,344 contract from DOC to Evergreen. Today, we focus on prisons at Cedar Creek, McNeil Island, Stafford Creek and the Washington Corrections Center for Women. These facilities represent a broad spectrum of population size, gender, security level and infrastructure, which maximizes the extensibility of this project to other locations. Working with professional evaluators, we document the effects of our activities on the knowledge, behavior and attitudes of all participants and serve as a model for other prisons and residential institutions such as military bases, assisted living centers and summer camps.

Learn more about our early years at the Cedar Creek Corrections Center.

Our Participants and Staff

In addition to prison inmates, project participants include correctional officers, administrators and facility managers, as well as Evergreen faculty and students, visiting scientists and community partners such as the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Fort Lewis and The Nature Conservancy.

Project leadership:

Nalini Nadkarni, Ph.D.

Project Co-Director and Member of the Faculty, The Evergreen State College
President, International Canopy Network

Dan Pacholke

Project Co-Director and Deputy Director of Prisons, Washington State Department of Corrections

Jeff Muse, M.S.

Project Manager, The Evergreen State College

Graduate assistants:

Sarah Clarke

Graduate Assistant, MES Program, The Evergreen State College

Carl Elliott

Graduate Assistant, MES Program, The Evergreen State College

Liesl Plomski

Graduate Assistant, MES Program, The Evergreen State College