A rusting old metal shutter, large enough to accommodate a mid-sized truck, is rolled up exposing an opening in the eastern wall of the courtyard. Several guards pass through the opening and take up positions around the periphery of the courtyard. A moment later, an order is hollered out and inmates in orange coveralls and white cotton work gloves start filing out. Some of them have rakes; others, shovels. A few have sheers. One of them has been entrusted with a weed-whacker.

The guy with the weed-whacker gets his machine up and running and, starting at the eastern edge of the courtyard, moves towards the middle, making broad sweeping motions and kicking up rocks and dust and pollen. My window is pelted with small pebbles as he passes by.

A platoon of inmates armed with rakes make piles of the cut weeds which are then bundled up in canvas sacks by another group of inmates.

In less than thirty minutes, the inmates turn the wildly overgrown courtyard into an austerely manicured garden, in the center of which is a rounded hedge and a few modest trees.

Mission accomplished, they march out of the courtyard like soldiers, garden tools resting on their right shoulders. The shutter is pulled down and locked behind them.