If you’re unemployed and have experience in dog grooming, don’t mind working behind bars, I have a job to tell you about. A dog grooming instructor at the Decatur Correctional Center, a medium-security facility, in Illinois.
The prison runs a dog grooming training program for the inmates and the current instructor is stepping down after almost seven years.
The program is known as CLIP, which stands for Correctional Ladies Improving Pets. It has been grooming about 500 shelter dogs each year; their improved appearance has improved their adoption chances.
Thirty-six year-old Katrina Williamson went through the program and says it changed her life. She landed a job grooming dogs right out of prison.
CLIP has had a tremendous impact on inmates, several of whom have landed jobs shortly after their release.
Any prison program that teaches an inmate a skill they can use when they’re back in the general public can only be seen as a good thing. Add in the fact the grooming helps make the shelter dogs more adoptable and it can only be seen as a win-win situation. The industries supervisor at the prison, Mike Dooley, said most of the ladies who have participated in the program have not returned to prison.
