Cats for Prisoners?

Several inmates at a Vancouver-area prison
have furry new bunk mates with the goal that the offenders and the cats
will teach each other compassion.

By Jennifer Sullivan

Seattle Times staff reporter

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YACOLT, Clark County — Princess Natalie glowers from her perch,
a small table tucked inside a concrete prison cell. Her thick, black
tail twitches and her golden-green eyes narrow as she offers a clearly
dissatisfied meow when Joey Contreras picks her up and kisses her head.

Despite the protestations, Contreras and his cellmate, Joey Walter,
say that they have the best jobs of any inmates in Washington: They're
paid 35 cents an hour to care for Natalie, a longhair 6-year-old cat
with a testy disposition.

Since January, staff at Larch Corrections Center, a minimum-custody
prison near Vancouver, have assigned two shelter cats to each live with a
pair of inmates in the hope that the relationships will result in
better behavior — in both the felons and the cats.

"We're feline attendants," jokes Contreras, 28, who is serving time
for identity theft, forgery, fraud and possession of stolen property, as
he proudly shows off the scratches and bite marks courtesy of Natalie.
The cat's terrible temper and fussiness led Contreras to add "Princess"
to her name.

"She growls and swipes," said Walter, 37, who is behind bars for assaulting a police officer.

"We don't know what she's in here for," he jokes. "She won't tell us."

For years, corrections agencies across the nation have adopted
programs to allow inmates to interact with animals as a way to teach
them responsibility and compassion, two things in rare supply in most
prison cells. In Washington, such programs have connected inmates with a
veritable menagerie of animals — from honeybees to tadpoles, dogs to
butterflies, and now, for the first time, cats.

Dan Pacholke, director of prisons for the state Department of
Corrections (DOC), says it's been more than 30 years since dogs were
assigned a permanent place in the prison system. Since the early 1980s,
inmates at the Washington Corrections Center for Women, in Gig Harbor,
have trained dogs for owners with special needs.

Since then, dog-training programs have spread to a big portion of the state prisons.

Eleven of the state's 12 prisons have some type of program involving
inmate interaction with animals. It will become 12 for 12 later this
month when inmates at Airway Heights Corrections Center, near Spokane,
will start training dogs, Pacholke said.

Pacholke believes that having inmates work with animals makes "the
environment of prisons less tense and less violent." Working with
animals "instills empathy, compassion and responsibility" in the
offenders, he said.

"They're getting [animals] that are castaways. That irony isn't lost
on the inmates. They're encouraged by the success," Pacholke said.

Monique Camacho, a classification counselor at Larch Corrections
Center, said inmates interested in participating in the program must
have a history of good behavior. They pair each cat with two inmates,
and donors provide the necessary supplies — a litter box, scratching
post and cat food.

The inmates, designated by DOC as "cat handlers," are paid to leash
train, socialize and groom the cats so the animals can ultimately be
adopted.

Cuddly Catz, a Vancouver-based nonprofit animal-welfare group that
takes in abandoned cats, places the cats in the prison. Their volunteers
come out regularly to teach the inmates how to work with the animals,
Camacho said.

Cuddly Catz, and a veterinary clinic and a man who makes scratching
posts donate everything, from the posts, to the litter boxes, to toys
and any necessary medical treatments.

On a recent afternoon, Clementine, a small gray and white cat, spread
out on her scratching post, staring at 35-year-old inmate Richard Amaro
as he talked about her likes and dislikes. He boasted about her sunny
disposition and said he and his cellmate are lucky to be assigned such a
mellow cat, compared to their neighbors' cat, the redoubtable Princess
Natalie.

"This gives you a softer side; it makes you feel like you have a kid
at home. When I've been out during the day I remember I've got my
daughter at home waiting for me," said Amaro, who is serving time for
theft, harassment and contracting without a license.

Clementine doesn't make a peep when Amaro clips a leash on her and
carries her out of his cell. Amaro walks out of his cellblock to an
outdoor gated area, next to the prison's razor-wire fence. He opens the
gate, sets his cat on the ground, and she scampers to a log and hunkers
down.

The DOC cat program is free for the agency, except for the $1,000 they spent on the outside cat-play area.

Watching the men at the outside cat-play area, Corrections Officer
Wes Robinson said he's surprised by the positive change he's seen in
Contreras since the arrival of Princess Natalie. Robinson said that he
used to supervise Contreras at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, in
Aberdeen, and recalls he was a problem inmate.

"It just give them something around to take care of. Contreras was a handful," Robinson said. "This takes his mind off things."

Camacho, the counselor at Larch, said that when she and prison
Superintendent Eleanor Vernell started brainstorming ideas for new pet
programs, she suggested horses. Vernell suggested cats.

"I wanted to do something different," said Vernell, who believed "dogs are too macho."

Vernell believes that working with cats is far more complex because inmates have to work harder to earn the animal's affection.

"It teaches them responsibility. It teaches them patience. It teaches them how to bond," Vernell said.

In the coming months, prison officials hope to expand the program to
about a half-dozen cats to pair with each two-man cell, Camacho said.

"This forces them to think outside of themselves. They have to make sure the cat is loved and happy," Camacho added.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @SeattleSullivan.