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BY PAUL COLLINS - - - - Paul Collins’s recent book Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism combines a memoir about his son Morgan with a travelogue into the past and present of autism and neurology. See yesterday’s excerpt on the Liberty Dog Program, where prisoner volunteers in Green Bay, Wisconsin, train service dogs for the disabled. After Not Even Wrong was published, Paul learned about the disturbing fate of this very program. “They’re always trying to kill this program,” Sgt. Thom McGovern had told me. I wondered whether maybe he was exaggerating, or was just a little paranoid—as a prison guard might well be after a couple decades on the job. After all, the program at the Sanger Correctional Facility had not only survived for six years since its start in 1997, but it had grown and acquired a new building. But he was right. The Liberty Dog Program, in which prisoner volunteers trained dogs for use by the disabled, was shut down in November 2003, as my book Not Even Wrong was going to press. Despite the immense efforts made by the prisoner volunteers themselves in building the facilities with their own hands and with donated materials, despite the gratitude of disabled child quadriplegics, autists, and MS victims for their service dogs—and despite the fact that the program was funded through private donations—it had never been terribly popular with corrections officials. Newspaper articles featuring the sweet-natured golden-retriever mascot, Billy, did not warm any governmental cockles either. Once officials had an excuse, the end came swiftly: McGovern was placed on leave for an alleged “security breach.” One dog-program expert that I contacted had a more succinct explanation: “They set him up.” Civilian volunteers, upset by McGovern’s treatment by the Department of Corrections, actually seized the dogs from the prison and took them home. After berating them for taking prison property, a state attorney issued this rather curious further statement: “We don’t want the dogs back anyway.” This only makes sense if, perhaps, they really never wanted them in the first place. Begun in a number of states through the efforts of Sister Pauline Quinn, a Dominican nun, prison service dogs are the sort of heartwarming story you’d expect a Hallmark movie to be made out of. And indeed one was: Laura Dern played Sister Pauline in it. But we live in a time where heartwarming stories, politics, and prisoners no longer mix. Writing to Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin after the Department of Corrections shut down the Liberty Dog Program, Sister Quinn was appalled: “I go around the country starting other prison dog programs,” she berated him. “Wisconsin is a primary example of how the DOC can kill a program.” At the time of Liberty Dog’s shutdown, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections claimed the program was simply on hiatus until early 2004. “Once the investigation is completed, the Department of Corrections is looking forward to restarting the program,” said a spokesman for Gov. Doyle. But the prison staff tell a different tale: One staffer at the Sanger Correctional Facility told me the program was gone. Period. The spokesman for the DOC has not responded to my inquiry on the matter. Liberty Dog’s e-mail address no longer even works, and phone calls to its direct number are allowed to ring and ring. Billy the Retriever can’t pick up phones for the disabled anymore, and neither, apparently, can the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. - - - - Curious when the state of Wisconsin is going to restart the Liberty Dog Program? Ask Gov. Jim Doyle at (602) 266-1212 or wisgov@gov.state.wi.us. Those interested in volunteering for, or beginning, prison dog programs in their state can find more information at www.pathwaystohope.org/prison.htm.Paul Collins’s most recent book is Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism. He is also series editor of the Collins Library. English As She Is Spoke, the first title issued through the Collins Library, is now available in paperback.
OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
Playlists on Dick Cheney's iPod By Ryan Boudinot Dan Kennedy Solves Your Problems with Paper By Dan Kennedy An Open Letter to the Radioactive Spider That Never Bit Me By James Foreman Additional Appreciations of Robert Coover from Ben Marcus, Brian Evenson, and Edwidge Danticat |
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