Canberra's prison has been criticised repeatedly in independent reports for offering detainees relatively few capabilities for self-improvement to alleviate the terminal boredom behind bars.
But among the well-meaning folk at the Murrumbateman Landcare Group, the horticultural skills and efforts by a small group of prisoners at the Alexander Maconochie Centre are making a difference outside the wire - even if the prisoners can't get to see it.
AMC's production nursery and horticultural program has propagated thousands of native plants for the group and Annaliese Caston, who manages the program, says her landcare members are quite envious of what the inmates have been able to achieve within the chain link fences and high voltage wire.
Seven detainees work in the nursery five days a week and are paid for their work.
"The plants they [the detainees] are growing are really good quality; sometimes we're a bit jealous because they [the AMC plants] are better than what we can grow," she said.
"It's a fabulous partnership; we can't grow enough plants in our small nursery for distributing among the local region and this program has supplied us with almost 9000 plants over the last three years.
"The plants are being planted on private and public land in places like Sutton, Yass, Gundaroo, Wallaroo and so on and it's so important to do that because our local area which is box gum grassy woodland is a critically endangered eco-system in this region and we've lost 95 per cent of those woodlands and grasslands since European settlement."
The acting Commissioner for Corrections, Bruno Aloisi, said programs like horticulture hopefully provide opportunities for employment and a connection with the community for when inmates leave the prison.
The success of the program - despite its modest size - has prompted plans to build on it further, with fish tanks for aquaculture and growing vegetables for use in the kitchen.
"I think it would be fair to say we are always looking to expand the opportunities for detainees whether that's in employment, education or industry; it's something we're committed to in the future," he said.
