High end restaurants serve vegetables grown at Cook County jail

Program Coordinator Tina Bentley at Cook County Jail Garden

By Cloee Cooper Surrounded by thick concrete walls and barbed wire fences lies the Cook County Sheriff’s Urban Farming Initiative, a place where jail inmates grow vegetables and herbs which eventually make their way to Chicago’s trendy restaurants and farmers’ markets. The program has operated with inmate labor since 1994. Spanning 130,000 square feet, and […]