Canine CellMates

Canine CellMates is a jail dogs program operating out of Fulton County Jail and at our new "Beyond the Bars" facility in Atlanta, GA. Our mission: Utilizing Shelter Dogs to Change the Lives of Incarcerated Men. Canine CellMates provides and teaches an in-jail intensive 10-week educational program, where carefully selected participants within the jail are assigned the responsibility of taking care of a carefully selected shelter dog. Canine CellMates provides a positive community for men negatively impacted by the criminal justice system. We provide a safe space for these men to learn, grow and build their own success. By forming relationships with shelter dogs, who are innately good and loving, the inmates build confidence within themselves, which is further enforced by the education and programs that Canine CellMates provides. Our country has the highest per-capita incarceration rate of any other nation in the world, with 1 in 4 people cycling in and out of jail repeatedly throughout their lives. The reality is, the criminal justice system does not provide the social support, emotional guidance, and skillset training that would actually help people change the patterns that resulted in their incarceration. So, what can we do to stop the incarceration of so many people in the United States? How can we help people to change so that they don’t just continue to repeat a cycle of arrests and incarceration? At Canine CellMates, we work at a local level trying to answer these questions, by providing a rehabilitative program that is dedicated to teaching valuable workforce skills and social-emotional skills to people who have been arrested or incarcerated. On average the men in our program are on their 4th felony. Our goal is to help improve their lives, break their cycle of recidivism, and help them thrive. Canine CellMates is a 501(c)3 Charitable Org. Second Leash on Life, Inc., DBA Canine CellMates # 46-0765041.