PEARL RIVER — The Smith John Justice Center is a place where juveniles on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians’ Neshoba County reservation are sent when they run afoul of the law.
By this spring, youth offenders at the facility in Pearl River will spend time learning the farming techniques of their elders and, hopefully, develop responsibility and job skills for the future, Director of Court Services Daniel Mittan said.
The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is working with the Environmental Collaborative Office at Mississippi State University and the U.S. Justice Department to build a traditional Choctaw garden at the Smith John facility. Choctaw elders will work with the 13- to 17-year-old offenders housed at the facility to plant a garden featuring corn, beans and squash, which is known as the “three sisters,” Mittan said.
Plans also are in the works to begin building community gardens next year in each of the reservation’s eight communities, Mittan said, with youth and elders working together on a new plot of land annually. A greenhouse also is in the works, though it is still in the planning stages, he said.
Mississippi State’s Environmental Collaborative Office is assisting with technical advice and planning for the project, ECO Director Jeremiah Dumas said. A $700,000 U.S. Justice Department grant will help fund the endeavor, Mittan said.
“The gist of (the project) is we want to use environmentally sustainable activities, like gardening and other green technologies, as a platform for delivering services to the youth who come into detention for delinquent offenses,” Mittan said. “We want to get them prepared to leave a structured environment of detention and return home to their communities without coming back to detention. It’s the idea that, instead of a strict education in the classroom, it’s kind of a hands-on experience about helping out in the community and helping the kids find out what Choctaw gardening was all about centuries ago.”
Mittan hopes the program will turn at-risk Choctaw youth on to potential career paths, whether it’s green technology, agriculture or other opportunities.
Several strategic planning sessions are planned between now and June 30, but Mittan hopes the Justice Center can begin activities with some of the kids coming in and out of detention between now and then.
Dumas is excited about the possibility of expanding sustainable living practices among Choctaw youth, but also from a potential jobs perspective.
“I think it’s really interesting how they have these kids in detention and some of these kids have no connection back to their culture, and the federal government is funding these projects to teach these kids their culture and learn something that is sustainable, not only from the environmental sense, but it also give them a place in life and ... could lead to jobs,” Dumas said.
According to Mittan, the Smith John facility can house up to 15 juvenile offenders, but typically only holds five or six at any given time. The program will benefit not only the youth, but also the elders with whom they will work, Mittan said.
“We have a lot of elders that are tickled by this (project) because this is an opportunity to get with the kids and teach them about a culture they don’t really see anymore,” Mittan said.
Well, well... I suppose redneck offenders could be sentenced to a project wherein Afro-American inmate are sentenced to agricultural projects (anybody know a(n) euphemism for "cotton picking')?
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