Canine CellMates is an innovative 501(c)(3) that strives to create meaningful, positive connections between people facing felony charges and rescue dogs saved from local municipal shelters.
Both in and out of custody, Canine CellMates facilitates programs in Fulton County (Atlanta), Georgia, that utilize the healing power of shelter dogs to break the cycle of incarceration for individuals in our community, providing a safe environment for meaningful self-reflection and personal growth.
The in-custody program serves pre-trial inmates in the Fulton County Jail. For ten weeks, the program participants live and work alongside the dogs they train, using positive reinforcement training methods only. During their time together, the men and dogs form meaningful bonds and develop essential life skills. At the end of the 10-week cycle, they graduate in a joyful ceremony that showcases their progress.
The out-of-custody program, called “Beyond the Bars,” is an intensive, year-long program that serves as an alternative to a prison sentence for selected individuals—helping men return home to their families while giving them the life skills and the safe space to practice making better decisions and building a better future.
Having explored the structural and penological underpinnings of this model in an earlier session, we focus here on how programs like this can be set up and function in other jurisdictions for the ultimate benefit of individual defendants and their families, rescued animals, and the community as a whole.
