Taming men and mustangs
Program pairs wild horses, inmates with hope of creating productive futures
It's hot, sweaty and potentially dangerous work — and Tom loves it.
"I wait every morning to come out here. It's a life experience. It's taught me how to value life, respect it, how much more there is out there."
A new state Corrections program in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management pairs unbroken horses with lawbreaking men with the hope of giving all of them a chance at a productive future.
Wild horses destined for the program are gathered off the ranges of Utah, Oregon and Nevada by the BLM, eventually shipped to the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison and segregated into holding areas based on gender, age and other factors.
Patterned after similar corrections programs in Nevada and Wyoming, Utah's wild-horse program has been in the crafting stage for about a year. The National Mustang Association in Newcastle, Iron County, chipped in $50,000 in livestock panels and other property to help jump-start the effort, which began to team inmates and horses in August.
Prison officials tapped Kerry Despain's life-long experience of ranching and shifted his duties as Corrections' K-9 trainer to that of wild-horse specialist, or prison wrangler.
"I grew up on a ranch, own a ranch — it's a natural for me," Despain said.
A 17-year employee of the Department of Corrections, the Axtell resident said his approach to training inmates to train horses hinges on a simple concept.
"It's about trying to make it hard to do what is wrong and easy to do what is right."
The inmates learn to apply pressure to a horse until it complies with what is being asked. Like the inmates, horses bring to the training experience their own set of quirks — some are easier than others and some resist all attempts of being schooled to embrace what's expected of being "civilized."
Like inmates, those horses that prove too wild for society end up with a life sentence of sorts and are permanently put out to pasture — shuffled off to large corrals in the Midwest where they live out the rest of their days.
"It's kind of a challenge to take a horse with no experience from the wild and work with someone who was wild," Despain said.
Emphasizing that both men and horses come with potentials and pitfalls, Despain did concede the horses can be easier students because "horses will remember what you teach them most of the time."
Recent comments
First of all, the horses are not sold - they're adopted. A big...
another writer | Sept. 23, 2007 at 11:24 p.m.
What a good thing for inmates at CUCF What a outlet for them, The...
a vetran employee of CUCF | Sept. 23, 2007 at 4:17 p.m.
I think that this is such a great program. These inmates work hard...
Anonymous | Sept. 23, 2007 at 3:01 p.m.
