Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘ex-offender’

Prison Newspaper

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 26, 2024| 6 Comments »

Photo: Kerem Yücel/MPR News via Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Previous issues of the Prison Mirror, which has been publishing since 1887, sit on display in the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Stillwater.

From time to time I like to run a story about interesting prison programs or ex-offenders trying to make good. I’m pretty sure we don’t have the right kind of prisons in the US. You may recall me writing about the system in Norway, which is completely different. (Click here and here.)

Meg Anderson (Minnesota Public Radio NPR) wrote recently about a longtime enrichment program at a prison in Minnesota.

“Inside a state prison near Stillwater, Minn., past the guards and the wings of cells stacked one on top of another, tucked in the corner of a computer lab, Richard Adams and Paul Gordon are fervently discussing grammar.

“Both men are on staff at the Prison Mirror, a newspaper made by and for the people held at the Minnesota Correctional Facility – Stillwater. Gordon had written a profile on the prison art instructor. He read it aloud to Adams. …

“Conversations like this have been happening in this prison for more than a century. The Prison Mirror is one of the oldest prison newspapers in the country, running since 1887. Publications like this aren’t common, but in an era where many journalism outlets in the free world are struggling to thrive amid scores of layoffs, journalism behind bars is actually growing.

“ ‘Overall we do see a growth and a lot of interest in starting publications, starting podcasts even. And so that’s really quite exciting,’ says Yukari Kane, CEO of the Prison Journalism Project.

“Thirty years ago, she says there were estimated to be only six prison newspapers. Today, there are more than two dozen. That doesn’t take into account the hundreds of incarcerated writers submitting work to publications on the outside, like The Marshall Project’s Life Inside series.

“Kane says this kind of work can offer a window into what prison is actually like, one that prison administrators aren’t necessarily going to offer up freely. … Even if a newspaper doesn’t circulate far beyond the prison yard, it can offer a sense of empowerment for its writers. …

“The Stillwater prisoners write book reviews, legal explainers, and summaries of local, national and international events for the monthly newspaper. One man recently submitted an essay on homesickness. Another wrote an editorial criticizing lockdowns. The men on staff — there are only three of them — had to apply for these unpaid jobs, and they’re highly sought after.

“Adams says the job requires a lot of reading and research about what’s going on around the world and the prison. There are challenges. They don’t have the internet, for instance, so they have to rely on print media and articles printed out by prison staff.

“The prison also has to approve everything the paper publishes. The men say that can limit what they write about, especially if they want to report on the harsher aspects of their lives.

“ ‘I am limited in the sense of, they’re not going to let me print all types of crazy things about the water or the lockdowns or getting restrained or anything like that, which is understandable to a degree,’ Gordon says.

“Last fall, around 100 Stillwater prisoners refused to return to their cells. Gordon says the disobedience was their way of protesting extreme heat, poor water quality, and staffing shortages, which he says often result in lockdowns. He plans to write about it, but says he has been retaliated against in the past for sending reporting to outside publications.

“ ‘I was a lot more aggressive in my writing back then, and that was a learning experience for me,’ he says.

Brian Nam-Sonenstein, a senior editor at the Prison Policy Initiative, says punishment for doing journalism behind bars is common. ‘You can lose what are called good time credits, which are essentially time off of your sentence based on good behavior. You could go to solitary confinement. You could have your privileges revoked,’ he says. …

“Marty Hawthorne works at the Stillwater prison and oversees the Prison Mirror.

“ ‘They have a lot of freedom. My philosophy is: It’s their newspaper. It’s not my newspaper,’ he says. ‘I believe they have a right to do what they’re doing.’ He says if the men plan to publish something critical, he makes sure whoever they’re writing about has an opportunity to respond. But he says he also pushes back when leadership tries to censor stories he believes are fair.”

More at NPR, here. No firewall.

Read Full Post »

Planting Justice

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 18, 2024| 4 Comments »

Photo: Marissa Leshnov via the Guardian.
From the Guardian: Sol Mercado says her work as a gardener has brought her comfort and helped to reconnect with her roots.

Can Nature turn a life around? We’ve had a number of articles suggesting the answer is yes. Among others, our 2023 story about a traumatized Iraq veteran who discovered hiking in the wilderness.

Now Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil, of the Guardian, describes the role that an urban garden can play in life after prison.

“When Sol Mercado was incarcerated, one of her few sources of comfort was to dig her hands into dirt. Coming from a family of sugarcane and coffee farm workers in Puerto Rico, a love of gardening was in her roots. But it wasn’t until she was in prison and started participating in a gardening program that she truly connected with this part of her heritage. …

“Mercado – who was released a year and a half ago – now works for Planting Justice, a food justice organization based in Oakland, California, that tackles inequalities in the industrialized food system, from the underpayment of food workers to the lack of fresh produce in low-income neighborhoods.

“Planting Justice addresses food sovereignty with marginalized communities – in particular people who have been affected by the criminal justice system – through gardening workshops in prisons and jails, such as San Quentin state prison, and jobs for those formerly incarcerated.

“For Mercado, 36, the organization helped turn her life around. …

“ ‘What I learned in prison is that if I want to change, if I want to blossom, I need to work on myself and remove unhealthy things from my life,’ she said. ‘It’s the same as a plant. A plant, if you don’t weed it, if you don’t prune it, if you don’t water it, it’s not going to grow and give fruit.’

“Planting Justice’s two-acre (nearly 1 hectare) nursery – which grows more than 1,200 varieties of plants – is tucked between a busy highway and a railroad line in Sobrante Park, a low-income, predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood that’s long been a food desert with no grocery stores within walking distance. The land the nursery sits on once belonged to the Indigenous Ohlone people, so Planting Justice is working with the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a local organization that helps facilitate the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people; once the transfer is complete, Planting Justice will lease the land from them.

“Founded in 2009, Planting Justice has installed 550 edible gardens at schools, community centers and homes; hosts education programs for local youth; distributes produce to local residents; gives away free fruit smoothies at Bay Area Rapid Transit stations; and sources produce for the Good Table, a nearby cafe where diners pay what they can afford.

“As part of a new initiative that started this year, Planting Justice is also planting 1,000 fruit trees – apple, pear, pomegranate, peach, olive and fig trees – in East Oakland homes for free.

“Like Mercado, many Planting Justice employees were formerly incarcerated. Some came to the organization through re-entry programs and partnerships in jails and prisons, while others found their way after their release.

Planting Justice says its recidivism rate is 2%, far lower than California’s rate of nearly 50%. …

“Bilal Coleman said he first heard about Planting Justice while incarcerated at San Quentin state prison, north of San Francisco. He was coming to the end of his 20-year sentence and was participating in a partner program called Insight Garden – and Planting Justice was advertising that it was hiring people returning home to the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Coleman said that gardening is in his roots. “Ever since I can remember, there’s been a garden in my family,” he said. But that wasn’t the immediate draw to Planting Justice; it was the security of having a job lined up after his parole, benefits and good pay – salaries start at $19 an hour. ‘It was a chance to get on my feet before I actually paroled,’ he said. …

“Planting Justice’s presence can be felt throughout Sobrante Park, revitalizing a neighborhood that’s long been in decline. Sobrante Park has been ‘underresourced and overpenalized for generations, where there aren’t the same food options,’ said Julia Toro, nursery office manager.

“Covonne Page, Planting Justice’s land team lead, was born and raised here, and recalls a time when things were different. The 33-year-old said that he and his friends would ride inflatable rafts on the San Leandro Creek, which was lined with wild blackberry bushes and filled with lizards and turtles. Most houses had fruit trees and vegetable gardens in the back yard, and families would trade their harvest so that everyone had their fill of oranges, loquats, lemons and plums. This bounty meant the community ate well; Page remembers his grandmother’s blackberry cobbler and his grandfather’s plum jam. …

“But years of disinvestment, longtime residents leaving – often for prison – and environmental degradation have decimated this landscape, Page said. … By bringing fruit trees back to people’s yards and teaching them how to garden, Planting Justice is not only offering much-needed jobs to the community; it’s revitalizing its food culture and sovereignty.”

More at the Guardian, here. No paywall. Great photographs by Marissa Leshnov.

Read Full Post »

Art Behind Bars

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Riley Robinson/Monitor Staff.
Artist Danny Killion poses in his gallery, Weathered Wood, in Troy, New York. He is one of many who have benefited from the Prison Arts Program.

Some folks have no sympathy for people in prison and would begrudge any type of cultural program that might help them. “If they wanted to do [art, music, a GED …], they shouldn’t have committed the crime.”

But many of us know that life circumstances and not always conscious decisions can accumulate until someone is in big trouble. I like the Norwegian approach to corrections, here, and the often small but meaningful work that is done in the US.

Troy Aidan Sambajon wrote about an example at the Christian Science Monitor.

“On a long table, Jeffrey Greene prepares bundles of colored pencils for delivery to Connecticut state prisons. …

“Finished artwork lines the shelves of this airy warehouse, home to the permanent collection of the Prison Arts Program. Mr. Greene reaches up to a high shelf and retrieves a model RV, rendered in detail down to the windowsills. The shingles were cut from cardboard with a nail clipper and glued with a mixture of floor wax and nondairy creamer. Another artist unraveled a prison blanket and crocheted the threads into a 3D horse. …

“[Mr. Greene] has known his students for years, even decades. He can describe the medium they use and the metaphors their pieces convey, and has seen how the artistic process helps students deal with issues like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

‘Art unsettles habitual modes of thought and gives you the opportunity to think differently,’ says Robin Greeley, professor of art history at the University of Connecticut.

” ‘It can disrupt your whole routine and can create a sense of wonder.’

“The Prison Arts Program is one of the oldest correctional arts programs in the United States. It’s the longest-running program of Community Partners in Action, a criminal justice nonprofit based in Hartford. …

“Mr. Greene never intended to work in the prison system. After graduating from Hamilton College in New York, he volunteered to teach art workshops in prison on a whim. But he’s never forgotten the impression left by his first day on the job. 

“ ‘Everyone’s developing in this artificial, man-made, absurd, adversarial environment. It’s ridiculous,’ recalls Mr. Greene. …

“ ‘What drives Jeff really is the ability to show the humanity of the prison, of the people that are incarcerated,’ says Beth Hines, director of Community Partners in Action. ‘They know they can count on him when they get out.’

“In each prison he visits, Mr. Greene instructs his students to create art that only exists because they exist. He says it’s about more than finding a hobby while behind bars: ‘They are people that are coming out into the world with this incredible empathy and curiosity.’ Even if they never leave the prison system, he adds, that mindset can have a positive effect on others. …

“For years, Natasha Kinion felt like she’d been swallowed alive in prison. ‘I was guilt-ridden. I was shameful. I was really broken,’ she says in a phone interview. 

“A mother of four who has experienced domestic abuse and substance addiction, Ms. Kinion spent 13 years at York Correctional Institution in Connecticut. There she started making abstract art. 

“ ‘It took me at least the first six years of my incarceration to really open up and allow the healing process to start,’ says Ms. Kinion. …

“Mr. Greene helped Ms. Kinion send her artwork to her children. Her daughter Mayonashia Jones once received a drawing of a butterfly trying to fly with broken wings. She remembers thinking of her mom and wondering, ‘Has she always felt like that?’ …

“Since her release in 2019, Ms. Kinion has published a book about her journey, titled Stand Up You’ve Been Down for Too Long, and has opened her own digital art company, Dezigning Deztiny. 

“ ‘I never told him this … but Jeff is really my hero,’ says Ms. Kinion.

“Danny Killion had little interest in art when he was robbing banks in Connecticut. Then he was caught and sentenced to 12 years in prison. ‘Prison can be a very cold, hard environment,’ says Mr. Killion. …

“He spent 10 years in the Prison Arts Program, learning to concentrate on the artistic process and find solace in a concrete cell. 

“ ‘I’ve never met anyone who’s a more profound teacher,’ says Mr. Killion, who finished his sentence in 2007. As he found his feet in society, Mr. Greene would drop by, offering art materials and a listening ear.

“After working in construction, Mr. Killion began creating furniture using driftwood from the Hudson River. In 2013, he opened his own art studio and gallery, Weathered Wood, in Troy, New York. He traces his transformation back to those first classes with Mr. Greene. …

“This year, Mr. Killion unveiled his first public commission, a sculpture of twisted scrap metal depicting a man breaking through chains, installed at Old New-Gate Prison, a historical site in East Granby, Connecticut. Mr. Greene was there too, both men now standing outside prison gates.”

More at the Monitor, here.

Read Full Post »

A Better Life After Prison

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 24, 2022| 2 Comments »

Photo: Stephen Humphries/Christian Science Monitor.
Chef Brandon Chrostowski (center) teaches trainees inside the kitchen for Edwins Too, one of his two French fine dining restaurants on the East Side of Cleveland.

When you take a wrong path in life, does it have to determine everything that happens later? At the Christian Science Monitor, Stephen Humphries writes about a chef who is making sure that some people are successful when they start over.

“Brandon Chrostowski is telling his origin story for probably the thousandth time. He’s pacing the stage of a local high school, holding his microphone with the confidence of a rock star. Mr. Chrostowski is a distinguished chef – he was a restaurateur semifinalist in the 2022 James Beard awards – and founder of a Cleveland restaurant with a philanthropic mission. Yet he’s ambivalent about all the acclaim. He’s tasted what it’s like to be stripped of dignity. At 18 he was arrested for fleeing and eluding the police. He and some friends had been in a car with drugs they intended to sell.

“ ‘I learned a lot of things. One, the dehumanization in the criminal justice system,’ he tells the students at Gilmour Academy. ‘Also, the idea of freedom. You don’t really know what freedom is until you lose it.’

“A lenient judge decided against sentencing him to prison. Mr. Chrostowski has never forgotten that he was fortunate not to serve a 5-to-10-year sentence. It’s the reason he launched Edwins Leadership & Restaurant Institute on Cleveland’s East Side. 

“What makes Edwins unique isn’t just its French cuisine, but its workers – they’re formerly incarcerated adults. Over six months, those in training learn skills for employment in the culinary world. More than that, Mr. Chrostowski tries to draw out a sense of self-worth in those who’ve served time by showing them how to attain excellence. 

‘The single hardest thing we have to do at Edwins is really build esteem in someone that has lost that, or that sense of humanity, through incarceration,’ says Mr. Chrostowski.

“Hours before giving his speech at the high school, Mr. Chrostowski strides into a kitchen where two trainees are singing along to a Bobby Womack tune on the radio. Tying a half apron around his waist, the chef quickly assesses a hunk of braised beef inside a pot as large as a bassinet. …

“As Mr. Chrostowski shares tips with Richie, he picks up a knife and demonstrates how to slice asparagus. In 2017, Edwins was the subject of an Oscar-nominated short documentary titled Knife Skills. …

“Abdul El-Amin enrolled in the program in June after being incarcerated for 20 years. ‘When you come here, it is sincere. You’re welcome. You can feel it,’ he says after his first two weeks of training. He adds, ‘I’m seeing so many other opportunities that I didn’t think about when I was incarcerated.’

“That’s not to say the program isn’t demanding. Over 2,000 people have trained at Edwins since its opening in 2013. Of those, only 600 have graduated because most drop out, often within the first two weeks. (They’re always welcome to reapply.) The program boasts a 95% employment rate for its alumni, and fewer than 1% of graduates are re-incarcerated. Star pupils have gone on to work in restaurants across America and even in France.

“ ‘[Mr. Chrostowski] really doesn’t care what walk of life you’re from, who you are, what you’ve done,’ says William Brown, a staff member at Cleveland’s Community Assessment & Treatment Services, a rehabilitation organization that enrolls promising individuals in the Edwins program. ‘He wants to see you succeed. And he will go the extra mile.’ 

“Mr. Chrostowski has a hectic daily schedule. During peak restaurant rush hours, the chef admits to hurling pans in frustration, but they’re not aimed at anyone. … He pursues the exacting standards he learned as an apprentice at restaurants such as Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, Le Cirque in New York, and Lucas Carton in Paris. He rose fast. But he’s never forgotten his first break. In the late 1990s, a Detroit chef named George Kalergis took him in while he was still on parole. 

“Years later, Mr. Kalergis called from Detroit with bad news. A man named Quentin, who’d learned the rudiments of restaurant cooking alongside Mr. Chrostowski, had been stabbed to death. …

“ ‘I started to think, “How is it possible I’m here, and others are not?” ‘ says Mr. Chrostowski. … He wanted to help others, just as Chef Kalergis had helped him. But it took another decade of working in restaurants – including a move to Cleveland in 2008 – before he was able to raise the money to fulfill his vision.

“Mr. Chrostowski came up with the name, which is shorthand for ‘Education wins.’ Edwin is also the chef’s middle name. A few years after moving to Cleveland, he opened his restaurant in a historic, racially diverse area called Shaker Square. In 2020, he expanded by opening a second restaurant, Edwins Too, on the opposite side of the town’s leafy square. He’s also launched a French bakery and a butchery. The expansions have helped the area become a dining destination. 

“Just off the main street in Shaker Square, Mr. Chrostowski proudly shows off his latest project, which will become a child care center. ‘We’ve raised about $250,000 for a family center or day care,’ he says. ‘Free day care for staff and students, because 80% of our students with children don’t finish. It’s a big number and we want to change that.’

“The chef also wants to help outside Ohio. In April he traveled to his ancestral home of Poland to cook for refugees fleeing Ukraine. He’s also created a 30-hour curriculum and distributed it on 400,000 tablets to prisons in the United States. Dee and Jimmy Haslam, co-owners of the Cleveland Browns football team, will pay for transportation for anyone in the U.S. who completes the virtual instruction and applies to join the Edwins program.”

More at the Monitor, here.

Read Full Post »

Ex-Offenders Starting Businesses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 25, 2020| 4 Comments »

Photo: Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff
Carlos Omar Montes keeps all the equipment and supplies for his mobile barbershop in a 5′ X 5′ storage unit. With support from entrepreneurship programs, he’s building a new life after serving his time.

When I edited a magazine focused on low- and moderate-income issues in New England, I liked to acquire articles on helping former inmates lead a decent life after serving their sentence. Dumping someone on the side of the road with a toothbrush is hardly the way to help him start supporting himself and giving back to society (in the form of taxes, family stability, community service, etc.).

Although retired for four years, I am still drawn to such stories. Here’s one from Kelly Field at the Hechinger Report via the Boston Globe.

“Standing before a roomful of CEOs, angel investors and foundation representatives at Boston College Law School late last year, Carlos Omar Montes pitched his idea for a mobile barbershop.

“Omar’s Barbershop, he told the audience, would fill a niche in the grooming market, offering the ‘old-fashioned experience’ of hot lather and warm towels to men who are confined to group homes and nursing facilities.

“ ‘Omar’s will connect people to the happiest time in their lives, bringing them freedom, convenience and happiness,’ said Montes, dressed in a vest and tie for his presentation.

“A year and a half earlier, Montes, now 31, had been an inmate at the South Bay House of Correction in Boston. He served almost eight years in all, there and elsewhere, for possession of drugs and a firearm. Now he was in a lecture hall on the pastoral suburban campus of Boston College Law School, for the final day of an entrepreneurship boot camp that paired former inmates with law student mentors.

“Covid-19 would arrive a few weeks later. Still, Montes spent the lockdown positioning himself to move forward with his business as soon as reopening allowed — amid a recession that otherwise would have made it considerably harder for him to get any other kind of job.

“The idea of bringing higher education inside prisons got considerable momentum in the years leading up to the pandemic, becoming the subject of books, documentaries and extensive media coverage.

“But if ex-inmates weren’t getting hired before coronavirus, they are unlikely to be in the front of the line now that millions of Americans are unemployed, no matter how much education they received.

“The stigma against candidates with criminal records is so strong that, even with the skills they may have learned behind bars, many find it easier to start a business than get hired by one, said Marc Howard, a professor of government and law who helped start Georgetown University’s Pivot entrepreneurship program last year. …

“Project Entrepreneur at BC, launched last year, is one of a small number of similar efforts that take place both inside prisons and on college campuses and attempt to provide inmates and ex-inmates with the skills, confidence and contacts they need to start their own businesses. They also aim to open traditional students’ eyes to the stigmas and systematic barriers to employment former prisoners like Omar face. …

“Many employers are wary of hiring ex-convicts. According to one widely cited study, a criminal record reduces the likelihood of a callback or job offer by nearly 50 percent. The result: More than a quarter of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed, and nearly half are re-arrested within eight years of their release. …

“Thirty-five states, including Massachusetts, and more than 150 cities and counties have adopted ‘ban the box’ policies that bar questions about prior convictions from job applications. …

“Said Kevin Sibley, executive director of Boston’s Office of Returning Citizens, which helps formerly incarcerated people find education and employment, even in ‘ban the box’ states, many employers still run background checks late in the hiring process and drop any candidate who has committed a felony, ‘even when it has nothing to do with the work assignment.’ …

“Elizabeth Swanson, who has led a Babson College entrepreneurship program for prisoners for a decade, said the lessons of these prison entrepreneurship programs are not only for the inmates.

“When she asks students, at the start of each semester, what they think about prison, Swanson said, they’ll often say something like, ‘I’ve seen “Orange is the New Black.” ‘ Some are terrified to step inside a jail. But when they get to know the inmates, through letters or visits, ‘they do a complete 180.’ ”

More at the Globe, here.

Read Full Post »

After Release, a Ride Home

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 10, 2018| 4 Comments »

Photos: A Ride Home
When you get out of prison, you’re often on your own. That’s where A Ride Home comes in.

The other day, I was reiterating for a couple grandchildren the basics of the Christmas story. When you get down to essentials, the life of the grownup Baby Jesus, as told to us, was all about teaching kindness and going among the poor and outcast to comfort them.

I told the kids that “when Herod the King heard [about a new ‘Governor’], he was troubled” because he didn’t know the baby would not grow up to be the kind of leader that would take Herod’s throne and soldiers and money but instead would teach people about being good to one another.

Although we aren’t regular churchgoers, the kids like the annual Christmas pageant, and I wanted to go over the setting and roles a bit.

That’s a long intro to saying that Christmas is a particularly good time to consider how much the poor and outcast — and those who provide compassion to them — can benefit when we adhere to what is really the essence of all religions.

I recently learned about a great example of compassion for the outcast — a program for ex-offenders called “A Ride Home.” WNYC radio interviewed the people behind it.

“People released from prisons face all kinds of barriers as they transition back into the outside world, whether it’s finding jobs or housing.

“But beyond these large challenges, there are all kinds of small things the formerly incarcerated have to re-learn on the outside world — from opening doors, ordering from a menu, to choosing what kind of shampoo to buy.

“The Ride Home program helps people with those first few hours when they get out of prisons in California. …

“Carlos Cervantes is one of the program’s drivers, who is formerly incarcerated, and now picks people up, takes them for coffee and food, buys them new clothes and is with them in those first moments. He remembers the moments leading up to his own release back in 2011.

” ‘You feel nervous, asking, “What’s on the other side? How does the other side look like.” For me having spent 10 years 8 months, it’s kind of like this picture that like you can only imagine,’ he said.”

You can listen to WNYC’s podcast about the compassionate program via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What I especially like is that former offenders want to help out by volunteering with the program. A Ride Home can make a person’s first post-prison emotion one of gratitude. And we all know what good things a feeling of gratitude can work in the world.

More at WNYC, here. Check out some really nice photos at the Ride Home website, here.

Read Full Post »

Illicit Prison Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 30, 2017| 6 Comments »

Photo: Kirk Crippens/ Insight Garden Program
Today’s post is about an illicit prison garden, but a 2014 story at NPR, here, suggests that approved gardens are finding favor with corrections officials. The photo is from San Quentin.

This story from the Marshall Project on twitter is about a secret garden behind prison walls — and what it meant to the gardeners.

Matthew Hahn, an ex-offender, wrote the article in collaboration with the online magazine Vice.

“I used to be a vegetable smuggler. It’s not how I got to prison, but it’s what I did once I was there.

“I wasn’t alone. The men with whom I worked in the garden on ‘China Hill’ at California’s Folsom Prison were there with me, every day, waiting in line to get back into the prison building and hoping the guards wouldn’t discover the vegetable contraband they had secreted away in their clothing.

“In my left boot, slightly smashed and carefully wrapped in a sandwich bag, was a single jalapeno pepper. In my right, bundled tightly and also wrapped, were a couple dozen shoots of green onions. …

“Officially, we were landscapers. There were about 20 of us, and we had been assigned to the landscaping crew atop the grassy knoll within the prison’s walls known as China Hill, spending our weekdays in what felt to us prisoners like the wilderness. …

“We had a hill, and a job on it, and a single guard, also our supervisor, who expected us to work only a couple of hours per day, after which he permitted us to while away the rest of our time as we saw fit.

“We weren’t actually allowed to garden, but that didn’t stop us from doing it. The unspoken agreement between the guard and us men was that we would keep China Hill from becoming an overgrown jungle, and in return he would pretend he didn’t see any of our vegetables growing there. It was motivation to keep us working.

“The vegetables we grew were the kinds that never would have made their way into the chow hall: We had squash, peas, chili peppers, bell peppers, watermelon, green onions, tomatoes.

“China Hill was divided into sectors, just like the prison yard. Black guys had the land in one spot, the Southsiders (a Mexican gang) in another, the White Boys near the Southsiders and the “Others” near the Blacks. Despite the determined segregation, it was peaceful. If the Southsiders wanted to eat some peppers with their burritos, they could trade a watermelon to the Others. …

“There was another aspect of working on China Hill that wasn’t usually shared with the men on the yard, but which made it one of the best jobs in Folsom: It offered the potential, at least, for solitude. The lack of noise — that was the feeling of belonging to the Earth again, and having a small part of it belong to me, and to us. …

“We were never able to smuggle in enough vegetables for entire meals — just morsels, just momentary freshness in our stale world. But we smuggled in memories when we smuggled in those tastes: memories of freedom.” More here.

Read Full Post »

Ex-Offenders and a Second Chance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 1, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Edwins Restaurant

At my former magazine we focused on lower-income issues, which meant we sometimes published research on topics such as prison reform, the criminalization of addiction, and job programs for ex-offenders.

Recently, I saw an article that reminded me of those efforts. It’s about an unusual fine-dining restaurant in Cleveland.

Jenn Hall covers the story at Paste, “Though the numbers vary by state, roughly three-quarters of ex-convicts are rearrested within five years, and more than half of those return behind bars. Ask Brandon Chrostowski about it, and he’ll tell you that it’s more than a problem. It’s a civil-rights issue — and that’s why he decided to do something about it.

“For diners at Edwins Restaurant in Cleveland Shaker Square, fine French cuisine is an initial draw. The setting is nouvelle-chic, befitting a Francophile menu that garners praise. Bar service is sophisticated, with a wine list that runs deep. But the reason to return goes beyond the plate. In almost every position, both front and back of house, ex-offenders are training to launch new careers.

“It’s the only white-tablecloth restaurant of its kind in the U.S.

“The trainees are part of Edwins’ six-month Restaurant and Leadership Training Program, of which Chrostowski is founder and CEO. (Edwins is a portmanteau of ‘education’ and ‘wins.’) Covering everything from mother sauces to white-tablecloth service, the program aims not just to equip ex-offenders with skills, but also to power them with the confidence to apply them.

“It’s a program borne of careful planning. Chrostowski first had the idea in 2004, secured approval to operate as a 501 (c) (3) in 2008, and then spent six years perfecting the pedagogy before opening the restaurant’s doors in 2013. Now, 20,000 diners visit Edwins each year.

“But job prep and a fine French meal is just one part of the story. Ultimately, Edwins is a support network for those determined to challenge statistics. So while participants indeed learn a perfect braise, they also get help with everything from reinstating their driver’s license to securing medical care. It’s a humanizing approach to a sobering problem, and perhaps that’s why it’s working. The Edwins-alumni recidivism rate stands at just 1.2 percent. …

“Asked what drives him, he says it’s about paying forward a break he was given. Growing up in Detroit, Chrostowski had a legal run-in and was lucky to land probation instead of a prison sentence. That ‘aha’ moment primed him to take stock, find a mentor and launch a fine-dining career …

“Though he reads like an optimist (and is when it comes to a belief in transformation), Chrostowski sees himself as a pragmatist. Given the chance, he says, many ex-offenders have the capacity and strength to rebuild. They just need that all-critical chance.”

To read Hall’s interview with Chrostowski, click here.

Read Full Post »

Inmates in the Vineyard

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2016| 4 Comments »

When people are serving time for a crime, how much better for society — both during their sentence and after they get out — if they have some useful work while inside.

Patricia Leigh Brown writes at Atlas Obscura, “Justin King spends most of his hours in a cinderblock dormitory room for minimum-security prisoners, sleeping on a metal bunk bed and being constantly monitored by surveillance cameras.

“But on a crisp California morning with coastal fog hanging on the hillsides, King, who is serving time for selling methamphetamines, and three of his fellow inmates at the Mendocino County jail huddle together in a 175-acre vineyard to pick plump sangiovese grapes. The only visible difference between the prisoners and the other field workers are the GPS tracking devices wrapped around their ankles.

” ‘Hey dude!’ King, 32, called out to his fellow inmate, Meliton Rangel, as King eyed a promising group of clusters wet with dew. ‘I hit clump city here!’

“The men’s enthusiasm for grapes with just the right sugar levels and tannins is a variation on the concept of work release, in which inmates deemed low security risks are employed by private companies. …

” ‘They’re hard workers,’ [Vineyard owner Martha] Barra says of her new employees, who wear “civilian” clothes in her magazine-esque vineyard. ‘They have to meet the same punctuality and performance requirements as everybody else.’ …

“The work is notoriously grueling: At first, Rangel, a stiff-legged 37, said he was going to quit. That changed when he received his first paycheck—his first one ever. ‘This has really helped me out,’ he says. ‘It feels very good to work.’ …

“In the Mendocino program last year, four of the six inmates who worked on the grape crew at Redwood Valley Vineyards have indeed stayed out of jail. Three now have full-time jobs. One now works at the vineyard full-time, rebounding from tough years of drug addiction and homelessness. …

” ‘There’s peace of mind out here,’ King says.”

More here.

Photo: Olivier Vanpé /Wikimedia Commons
Clusters of ripe and unripe Pinot noir grapes.

Read Full Post »

Inmates Helping Inmates

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 13, 2014| 6 Comments »

I liked an op-ed Stan Stojkovic wrote for the NY Times about a positive sort of prison program founded by a warden.

“It’s the singular guest at a prison who receives a standing ovation from inmates,” writes Stojkovic. “I’ve heard of only two: Johnny Cash and Percy Pitzer, a retired warden who in 2012 started a nonprofit corporation to award college scholarships to children of inmates.

“I sit on the board of Mr. Pitzer’s group, called the Creative Corrections Education Foundation. I recently went with him to visit some of the inmates at the Milwaukee County House of Correction. …

“He started in H6, a 60-bed women’s dorm. ‘Good morning, ladies. I’m Percy Pitzer, from Beaumont, Texas,’ he began. He told them that he had made a living for his family by working for the Bureau of Prisons, and that he and his wife wanted to give back. So he’d kick-started a scholarship fund with $150,000 of his own money. But he wanted it to become an inmate-funded venture, and said it would not work without their help.

“ ‘Will you help me with the price of a candy bar a month?’ he asked.

“His audience probably had a sense of the odds working against their children. Close to seven million children in the United States have a parent involved in some form of correctional intervention — jail, prison, probation or parole. …

“ ‘I will,’ one inmate said.

“ ‘I will,’ said another.

“ ‘I will.’ …

“In all, 13 women in H6 donated $41; one signed up to donate $5 per month. …

“At some correctional facilities, inmates earn $10 a day. Either way, this is money that would otherwise go to small luxuries, like snacks and deodorant. And yet about 300 inmates in Texas, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin have donated. Thanks to that money, in addition to private contributions, by the end of this year Creative Corrections will have awarded 40 $1,000 college scholarships.”

More on the program here.

Photo: Creative Corrections Education Foundation

Read Full Post »

Women Get a New Chance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

My daughter-in-law passed this along. Her colleague, who is related to the founder, told her about it.

Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest on Vanderbilt University’s campus in Tennessee, founded the Magdalene in 1997 to provide practical and emotional help to women often regarded as outcasts — ex-offenders, addicts, street people.

According to the website: “For two years, we offer housing, food, medical and dental needs, therapy, education and job training without charging the residents or receiving government funding.

  • Our six homes function without 24-hour live-in staff, relying on residents to create a supportive community, maintain recovery, and share household tasks.
  • Women come to Magdalene from prison, the streets and from across the Southeast and the country. …

“After four months, the women find work, return to school and/or enter Magdalene’s job training program at Thistle Farms, a social enterprise. …

“Magdalene’s programs are grounded in its 24 spiritual principles that advocate living gracefully in community with one another.”

The website also describes the Thistle Farms products: “By hand, the women create natural bath and body products that are as good for the earth as they are for the body. Purchases of Thistle Farms products directly benefit the women by whom they were made.

“Thistle Farms employs over 40 Magdalene residents or graduates. While working at Thistle Farms, women learn skills in manufacturing, packaging, marketing and sales, and administration. It is a supportive workplace where women acquire the skills they need to earn a living wage. Employees have the opportunity to put a percentage of their earnings in a matched savings account provided by Magdalene.” Read more.

Thistle Farms provides lots of ideas for holidays when you especially want to give gifts that help people. (This year I gave a few gifts from SERRV, for example, and my sister-in-law gave care packages from nonprofit San Francisco food incubator La Cocina, and people who bought charm necklaces at Luna & Stella, gave part of the cost to FreeArtsNYC.)

The products are all of such a quality as to make you want them at other times of year, too.

Photo: http://www.thistlefarms.org/
Women who work in the Thistle Farms Cafe head off for vacation Dec. 24.

Read Full Post »

Female Prisoners Get a New Start

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2013| 4 Comments »

On Sunday my husband and I took in the painful stories of several formerly incarcerated women who work on getting their lives back on track with Mary Driscoll at OWLL. The occasion was the performance of a collaborative theater piece called Hidden Faces of Courage.

All the women had the cards stacked against them from childhood on and had little hope of a better future after serving time. A recurring theme was the near impossibility of finding work with a criminal record.

So it was with particular interest that I read an article in UU World today about a café in North Carolina that is giving such women a second chance at life, starting with helping them earn an income.

Michelle Bates Deakin writes, “There’s a classic Catch-22 for women who have served jail time. It’s nearly impossible to get a job with a criminal record, and without a job and an income, it’s hard to keep from reoffending.

“The Rev. Melissa Mummert, a community minister in Charlotte, N.C., has dedicated the past decade to helping solve this conundrum, providing career and life coaching to female prisoners …

“In August, she helped open a new takeout restaurant in downtown Charlotte run by women released from jail. Second Helping gives formerly incarcerated women valuable job skills, income, and new starts at life.

“ ‘I kept hearing the same theme from so many women: “When I hit the jail door, I can’t get a job, because there is so much employment discrimination against people with criminal records,” ‘ said Mummert. Second Helping helps women leaving jail or prison land that all-important first job.”

Monique Maddox is one of the beneficiaries of the effort. “Maddox has worked at Second Helping since November 2011, when it opened its first coffee cart. She credits Second Helping with giving her opportunity. ‘Each and every one of us value our freedom today,’ she said. ‘I would never give it up.’ ”

More.

Photo: UU World
Rev. Mummert helped open the Second Helping café in Charlotte. It employs and trains formerly incarcerated women.

Read Full Post »

Offering a Second Chance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Mark Guarino has a nice story in the Christian Science Monitor about a Chicago woman of great determination.

” ‘Pollinate’ is a word that Brenda Palms Barber likes to throw around when talking to people about her work.

“She pollinates jobs for recently released inmates looking for a second chance. She pollinates faith among the people who take a chance in hiring them. She pollinates an upswing in North Lawndale, one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Chicago, about five miles west of downtown.

“She also pollinates honey. At least that’s the job of the bees she has spent five years raising.

“Indeed, Ms. Barber has brought swarms of bees to the city’s West Side, using them to foster job creation among a stigmatized group of people who live on the bottom rung of the economic ladder: black males who exit the state or county prison system with little formal education or job skills….

” ‘We have to be their first employers,’ she says. ‘We have to prove to society that people who did bad things, people who need second chances, can be positive in the workplace, that they will be loyal and hard-working and honest employees.’ “

More here.

Photo: David Harold Ropinksi/Sweet Beginnings
Brenda Palms Barber’s honey-products program has hired 275 ex-offenders since 2007. After 90 days, they shift to the outside workforce.

Read Full Post »

Employing Ex-Cons Can Be a Win-Win

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2012| 2 Comments »

“Want proof that the goals of business and the needs of the most vulnerable can align?” asks Sarah Treuhaft (in YES! Magazine, by way of the Huffington Post, by way of the Christian Science Monitor).

“Meet Jeff Brown, fourth-generation grocer and owner of the 10-store ShopRite regional chain based in Philadelphia.

“By mixing old-fashioned customer service with innovative new approaches, Brown is chipping away at the nation’s jobs challenge, starting in the communities hardest-hit by the financial crisis.

Treuhaft goes on to describe one of Brown’s employees: “After being sentenced to jail for five years for selling drugs in his hometown of Lancaster, Pa., Louis Rivera was determined to turn his life around. An eighth-grade dropout, he spent his first year in prison preparing for and obtaining his GED. Upon release, he moved to Philadelphia and sent out dozens of resumes, hoping, at age 31, to secure the first real job of his life. No employer responded. …

“He walked down the street from his apartment to Jeff Brown’s ShopRite grocery store … Louis had gone to the right place. He did not know it at the time, but ShopRite is the only grocery-store chain in Philadelphia, and possibly in the nation, with an explicit focus on hiring ex-offenders.”

And with proper screening and training, ex-offenders turn out to be just as satisfactory as other employees.

“Brown believes his success with hiring ex-offenders is due to a strong partnership with a nonprofit workforce training organization, ABO Haven, that screens ex-offender candidates to find those who are a good match for the grocery’s culture, provides training in ‘soft skills’ like how to be successful in a work environment, and then checks back in with the workers once they are on the jobs.” More.

City of Philadelphia photograph by Kaitlin Privitera
Mayor Michael Nutter visits ShopRite following ground-breaking for the expansion of the Cheltenham Brown’s ShopRite

Read Full Post »

Artists in spite of Jim Crow

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I liked Jacki Lyden’s story at National Public Radio about some unusual artists in the 1960s.

“If you traveled by way of Florida’s Route 1 in the 1960s, you might have encountered a young, African-American artist, selling a lushly painted oil landscape from his car. They weren’t allowed in galleries during Jim Crow segregation — but motels, office buildings and tourists would buy their vivid works.

“Together, they formed a loosely associated band around Fort Pierce, Fla., that came to be known as The Highwaymen. At $20 a painting, they made their way out of agricultural jobs like citrus-picking and defined the cultural look of an era.

“Their paintings departed from an earlier tradition of landscape painting in Fort Pierce. A.E. ‘Beanie’ Backus, considered the father of the landscape movement there, caught the clouds and savannahs and inlets that were falling to developers in the mid-century. He would teach many youngsters who came to his studio, including the teenage Alfred Hair, leader of The Highwaymen.

“These artists would take off in their own direction. But success has brought enduring tensions on their home turf, raising questions about art, race and cultural legacy. …

“The who’s who of The Highwaymen can be tricky. (A curator named Jim Fitch coined the name in the ’90s and it stuck.) Gary Monroe, author of The Highwaymen, Florida’s African-American Landscape Artists, counts 26 original painters — 18 of whom are still living. That’s how many were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004.”

Lots more.

Photograph: Gary Monroe
Alfred Hair (left) and Robert Lewis

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »