ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 15, 1996 TAG: 9605150035
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LORTON
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
A PROGRAM CALLED People Animal Love gives inmates at the Lorton Medium Security prison a chance to become nurturers.
Down a winding corridor, open to sunny grounds on one side and closed by chain-link and barbed-wire fencing on the other, they gather and wait.
Men, dressed in blue jumpsuits or street clothes, stare like expectant fathers toward a door at the far end of the walkway. They talk in low, soothing voices to calm their bundles of squirming, meowing fur.
Finally, a flash of white doctors' coats and brown medicine boxes passes between the brick walls of the prison dormitory and the recreation center.
In walk Virginia Tech senior veterinary students Bonnie Cline and Becke Bogue, along with their professor, Dr. Kent Roberts, and Dr. Earl Strimple, the man who brought them all here. They've come to vaccinate and give a once-over to the dozen or more cats in the make-shift waiting room.
The owners, inmates in the Lorton Medium Security Prison just north of Fredericksburg, have been convicted of murder, robbery and drug distribution, to name a few. They've more or less domesticated these felines, who previously ran wild around the 3,000-acre prison complex.
It's an incongruous scene. Prisoners, some with weight-lifter muscles and scarred faces who have spent decades cramped in this overcrowded penitentiary, dote and pamper these animals that look even tougher than their owners.
But that's the point, Strimple says.
"Some [of the prisoners] may have lots of kids but no wife. They've never had lots of nurturing to do."
A decade ago, Strimple thought to monopolize on the immense population of wild cats in Lorton. He started the nonprofit group for the prisoners and called it PAL, or People Animal Love. The group has since expanded and now goes into nursing homes as well.
Everything is donated. Operational costs come from the SPCA and the Humane Society, who often neuter the cats for free; Hills Science Diet donates thousands of pounds of food each year.
There's no concrete evidence that the program changes men from criminals to caring nurturers. (Strimple said one study did find the recidivism rate for members of PAL to be under 10 percent - where normally estimates hover around 50 percent - but the study was flawed.) No matter, Strimple has seen the improvements in self-esteem and motivation himself.
"They're here because they failed; now they do feel they've accomplished something," he said. "Life is important no matter where you are."
Several years ago, Strimple solicited his friend, Kent Roberts, to help in the check-ups. The Tech professor now makes the four-hour drive from Blacksburg twice a year, bringing a few students who are taking a senior course in small-animal veterinary work.
Bogue and Cline had never been in a prison before (well, Bogue had, to visit one particular black sheep in her family; she preferred not to elaborate).
The two women remain quiet for most of this prison visit - their first and last before graduating from Tech last weekend - occasionally sending sidelong glances to each other between cat exams. They carry themselves as consummate professionals, even as prisoners not involved in the program throw a few cat calls their way.
The students have their hands full as the cat owners place one after another of the hissing, scratching felines on the table. It takes two, sometimes three people to hold down the cats as the students push a needle full of vaccine into their hind quarters, check their ears for mites and their eyes for infection.
The small concrete room where the exams take place serves as a sanctuary for the 35 members of PAL. Cages with mice or parakeets clutter the place; green plants top the shelves.
Prison officials agreed to let PAL use the room exclusively, though space is at a premium in the crowded prison. In a compound built for a maximum of 1,200 people, more than 1,300 live here.
Torn, faded snapshots of birds, guinea pigs, cats and their owners cover a bulletin board. Nearby, a laminated copy of a Washingtonian Magazine article, dated two years ago, is proudly displayed. The striking black-and-white photo essay shows the proud smiles of several prisoners, who pose with animals in their arms.
Group leader Eddie Wilson's jolly smile shines from one of the photographs. In the picture, and in person, he wears a maroon crocheted cap, an emerald earring in one ear, and a T-shirt that fits tightly over his large frame.
Wilson was convicted of murder and armed robbery in 1976. He'll be eligible for parole in 2000.
He was one of several prisoners to go through a nine-month course to become a licensed veterinary lab assistant. Actually, he went through several times because he enjoyed it so.
"Doc [Strimple] gave us the revolution. We hadn't developed a great love for animals 'til he came," Wilson said. "It don't just extend to animals, I find I treat people better too."
Each morning, Wilson finds Midnight, so named for his black fur, waiting for him in the open yard.
"They always be waiting on me - when they see me coming they know I got a bag of food," he said.
But now, the cats are in the examining room.
One yowls and tries to scuttle off the table. With one movement, Jerry Martin reaches in front of the cat's owner, swoops two immense hands down onto the cat's neck and rear, and calms it quickly.
With a bald, shiny head and bulging torso, Martin could intimidate just about anything into settling down. Sent to prison 19 years ago for armed robbery, he'll have a possibility for discretionary parole this fall.
After about an hour of frenzy, the room is virtually clear of all cats except for James Jenkins' cat, Fat Head, who sleeps contentedly inside an empty bird cage. Eddie Wilson is thanking the two vet students and offering to sign a photocopy of the Washingtonian article with his picture on it.
With the cats gone, Martin steps back, crosses his arms and explains how he got his cat, Refugee.
He had been someone else's cat, but that person didn't care for him properly. Martin nursed him back to health and has been attached to him since. If he lives to see Martin leave jail in 2000, as scheduled, Refugee will be 20 years old.
"I hope he lives to see me gone, but if not, he had a wonderful life."
Martin, 38, wears a blue T-shirt with the words, "My strength comes from within." He said he sees the possibilities of life he missed as a young man, when his "foolish" act sent him to prison.
"I was just telling Dr. Strimple last week, `You're giving us a chance to add to our experience. Some of us could be masons or carpenters, but who would ever think we could become veterinarians?'''
Martin said he finds himself talking with the birds, the cats, even the plants - a behavior seemingly not conducive to an environment where sensitivity isn't exactly appreciated. But Martin said prisoners respect the work done by PAL members.
"You don't have to have that macho image to get respect," he said, "you have to have respect for other living things."
LENGTH: Long : 149 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON Staff 1. Waiting in line to see theby CNBveterinary students, Nathan Hunter (left) calms an unhappy Tiger,
and Willie Doggett holds Lucky. The inmates joked that the prison
must have sent out a memo alerting the wild cats that it was shot
day because they were hard to catch.
2. Roberts (above, left) Cline and James Birth cautiously try to
calm Birth's hissing cat, Moma. 3. Eddie Wilson (at right in right
photo), who has studied to become a licensed veterinary lab
assistant, confers with Cline about the health of his cat, Sad Man.
3. Not your average house call: Dr. Kent Roberts (left), Dr. Earl
Strimple/ and veterinary students Becke Bogue and Bonnie Cline enter
the medium-security prison in Lorton.
4. Inmate James Harris shows off his pal Blackie while waiting
their turn to see visiting Virginia Tech veterinary students.
color.