Wild Horse Inmate Program in Colorado Benefits Both Mustangs and Prisoners

[BlueStateSaint]

This sounds like a good story.  Seems that everyone benefits.

Wild Horse Inmate Program in Colorado Benefits Both Mustangs and Prisoners

By Kelly David Burke

Published May 06, 2011
| FoxNews

It’s been 25 years since the Bureau of Land Management decided to speed up adoptions of wild horses by using prison inmates to train them. Since then nearly 5,000 animals have been gentled or saddle trained in the Wild Horse Inmate Program and adopted out.

Fran Ackley, who runs the BLM wild horse facility outside of Canon City, Colo., says the U.S. Border Patrol buys many of the inmate-trained horses.

“American mustangs working to protect America's borders, it just seems like a natural fit. We've adopted 95 horses to the U.S. Border Patrol, mostly on the southern border, but we have almost 30 horses on the northern border as well.”

Agents on horseback can patrol remote terrain where motorized vehicles just can’t get. And when it comes to horses, Mustangs bred in the wild are toughest and most sure-footed there are.

That’s why, Ackley says, they are the preferred choice of the Border Patrol. “They really like the quality of the horses (and) they use them all day, every day. And they can handle it: they're durable, they don't give out, they have really tough feet.”

The rest of the story is at:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/06/wild-horse-inmate-program-colorado-benefits-mustangs-prisoners/?test=latestnews

If it helps the inmates become productive members of society, it helps the BLM get wild horses off the land, and it helps the Border Patrol in mounted activities, I'm all for it.

[longview]

I agree.  It is a good program.

The Wyoming prison system has a facility at Riverton where they do the same.  Our urban inmates have nicknamed it "Death Row," though.  We haven't lost any people or horses but I guess it's a world away from thugging on the streets.  The head of it is a good horseman and able teacher.  The horses that come through that outfit are better than average in their training.