I learned to garden in Rhode Island’s Maximum Security prison, which I entered as an 18-year-old kid. I was serving two consecutive life sentences for a gang-related murder I committed at 17, and I was struggling to fully grasp the possibility that I would die in prison while holding onto hope that I wouldn’t.
The guys in the crew and I loved that 50- by 20-foot garden, which was fenced off in a corner behind the old gym that was set ablaze decades ago in a riot. At first, it was watering, weeding, trying to figure out how to smuggle strawberries back to the cell block, and learning the science of the soil from a teacher we called Dr. Dirt. Then, the garden became a lifeline for us. When spring came, we could finally see the new life we helped take root. Each sprout was a quiet victory, and each harvest was a reminder that, even in unexpected places, growth was possible.
My personal spring came after 23 winters behind bars. I was released under the Youthful Offender Act, which is also known as Mario’s Law, because it was inspired by my case. This legislation allows people who received long sentences for crimes they committed as children the opportunity to apply for parole after serving 20 years in prison. Ironically, for me, it took two additional years of legal battles for the Rhode Island Supreme Court to decide that I was covered by Mario’s Law. In July 2024, I finally stepped into the sunlight.
When I went to jail, I hadn’t yet turned 18 years old. I’m now 42 and a tree steward by trade, having defied the odds of my sentence. I plant trees across Rhode Island as my full-time job with an organization called Garden Time. I’ve been out over a year, and I am still relishing the fact that I spend my days beautifying the places that symbolized my short, barren years of youth.
One of the first trees I tended to was in the very spot where I took an innocent man’s life. It was a coincidence that I became responsible for keeping this living thing healthy by pruning and watering it.
And often, when I’m in my neighborhood, the kids join in. I hand them a shovel, and they get their hands dirty digging into the soil to help me plant the trees, bringing life and beauty into the community. I wonder what difference it would have made — and if the man I shot would still be alive — if someone had handed me a shovel and taught me how to garden as a kid.
My hope is that the children who come by see me as someone who cares about where they’re growing up. Many are still coming of age in neighborhoods with more broken glass than canopy cover. These aren’t superficial issues. It’s obvious to me that the lack of greenery in certain parts of town corresponds with other deprivations I grew up with.
I came from a broken childhood — one of poverty, violence, drug dealing, addiction and neglect. Because of her struggle with addiction, my mother died of AIDS, as did my baby brother Matthew, who was born with it.
My late stepmother involved me at 11 years old in her drug dealing. By 16, joining a gang was my outlet. I spent my adolescence looking for purpose, absorbing my environment and destroying things around me. But I — a human being — wasn’t broken beyond repair. I just needed tending.
Going into prison as a kid was not what I needed. It did not teach me about remorse, accountability, trauma or my potential. With two consecutive life sentences, I had very little access to programming or education.
Prison would have kept me dormant if it weren’t for the gardeners in my life who wouldn’t leave me in a drought. My Aunt Dee, who, despite the overpriced prison phone calls and the three hours she had to travel for visits, would tell me, “You’re more than what they see.”
Instructors in a trauma-informed gang step-down program taught me how to sever my gang ties and helped me understand how the trauma I’d experienced led me to traumatize others and land in prison.
There was a state representative, Julie Casimiro, who heard my graduation speech during a prison visit and carried Mario’s Law forward for three-and-a-half years until it finally passed.
And then the literal gardeners showed up. Kate Lacouture and Vera Bowen started Garden Time for people like me, who weren’t expected to ever go home. The program taught me more than how to till the soil. I learned patience, responsibility and care — qualities prisons seem to have little interest in.
Every human who came to me with their watering cans — whether in the form of phone calls, dreams or shovels — helped me blossom. They helped me realize my value, countering the times that adults, including my stepmother, told me that I would never amount to anything. Thanks to them, I’m still growing.
Believing that people like me can bloom, however late in our lives, is not just an act of mercy; it is central to the issue of safety. When society gives us the opportunity to grow, we become powerful allies in the fight to save other young lives and our communities. We know where the cracks are because we’ve fallen through them. We speak the language of survival and transformation.
And when my team and I plant a tree, we are cultivating an environment where a child might find a moment of peace, a sense of being cared for, and a visual reminder that growth and beauty are possible even amidst hardship. One pioneering hospital-based study suggested that even just viewing nature expedited healing from gallbladder surgery. Studies find that among adolescents, access to green space reduces stress, improves mental health, and fosters a sense of well-being, critical buffers against the turmoil that can lead to violence. Tree canopy protects us from more than just the sun.
When we still allow kids to be sentenced to life, we declare a permanent winter. A new system of accountability that allows spring to come demands a fundamental shift in how our justice system views and treats children. We must invest in the soil — the resources, the education and the opportunities — that allow young people to grow toward the light. We must build a protective canopy, street by street, to give our youth in crisis a place to recenter and restore. And we must invest in the gardeners — mentors, families, instructors — that bear branches for generations to come.
Mario Monteiro was 18 when he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in Rhode Island for a gang-related murder in Providence. He is the namesake of “Mario’s Law,” a state law that allows people sentenced to life as children the opportunity to apply for parole after 20 years. Released in July 2024, Mario is a tree steward on the canopy crew at Garden Time and a co-founder of The RI Freedom Collective with two other former juvenile lifers. He is also a proud member of the Incarcerated Children’s Advocacy Network.
