EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT) — In Evansville, Old National Bank Plaza is displaying over 60 quilts made by inmates at a maximum security prison. It’s part of the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility’s P.L.U.S. program.
Inmates can request to be apart of the 18-month program that allows them to learn new life skills. Before they can be approved, they go through an interview, and are examined for things like good behavior.
Organizers say quilting allows inmates to give back, while learning how to work well with others.
Inmates are given jobs like designing, cutting and sewing.
The quilts are given away to non-profits.
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“The quilting, the sewing that they learn…it could lead to a vocation on the outside as well. It’s an open room. I mean, they have sewing machines, they have scissors. Some people that don’t know about the prison, they ask ‘well, do they have access to scissors?’. [I say] you gotta treat them just like human beings,” says Eric Hoch of the Indiana Criminal Justice Association.