‘Former inmates want to come back to visit’: inside Florida’s prison zoo

Prisoners look after a kinkajou, zebu and ostrich at Monroe County detention center in the Florida Keys.

It is the only correctional facility in the world with its own zoo At the Monroe County detention center, on Stock Island in the Florida Keys, most of the prisoners do the type of work you’d typically imagine people doing in jail.

Preparing meals in the kitchens, cleaning the common areas, working in the laundry, and so on.

But for about five prisoners at a time, the work looks a little more exotic.

As they’re working in the jail’s on-site zoo, taking care of animals including a capybara, a kinkajou, a zebu, and an ostrich.

Continue reading...