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NPR visits a prison goat farm that was the subject of an activist's ire back in 2015:
Whole Foods loved [Jim Schott's] cheese. His company [Haystack Mountain] grew. It also changed. Ten years ago, Haystack Mountain started buying milk from a farm in a prison. Schott doesn't recall telling Whole Foods or his other customers about that change in the Haystack Mountain story. In any case, Schott felt that it was a good thing — "a model of good prison management."
Then, in 2015, a prison reform activist named Michael Allen sent a letter to John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods. Allen demanded that Whole Foods stop selling Haystack Mountain's cheese because it was made, in part, using the labor of prisoners earning pennies per hour. The way Allen sees it, Haystack was "taking advantage of helpless, powerless individuals. They're fair game for corporations to make money off of. And I just told [Mackey] that we wanted him to get out of that business."
Many things besides cheese are made in prisons. Across the country, tens of thousands of inmates work for businesses that have set up operations inside prison walls. They make flags and furniture. Most of the time, they attract little attention. People may feel differently about something they eat, though, especially a boutique food like goat cheese. To Allen's amazement and delight, Whole Food caved to his demands. In a statement, the company said that some of its customers weren't comfortable with products made by prisoners, so it would no longer sell them.
The inmates are still milking those goats, though. I was curious about this farm, and set up a visit.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 21 2017, @02:55PM (2 children)
This might work even better if you teach them useful skills instead of milking goats.
Teach them to mine coal, I hear there is a future in that. I hear it from no less than the president of the US.
How about something more useful like hacking. You could even start with simple things like Arduino robot kits like school children use in school.
Or teach them cooking. Real cooking. Not prison cooking. (Put in 55 gallon drum, heat to 5000 degrees for nine minutes, serves 1,200.)
Maybe even offer classes with actual credit, or some kind of certificate for successful completion. Electricity. Plumbing. Auto mechanics.
Of course, then you start to introduce security problems for the prison. Not everyone wants rehabilitation. Some people want to be criminals. That is their career goal. Formed by growing up with the reality of no possible opportunities for them. Something that as a society maybe we should fix to address the prison problem before criminals choose that as a profession.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snospar on Friday July 21 2017, @03:10PM (1 child)
Totally agree, there should be far more education in prisons. Let's face it, a lot of people are in prison because they made dumb decisions or were "stupid enough to get caught". People without skills, on low income jobs, have trouble managing their limited finances and end up doing something daft that eventually lands them in prison. Simple classes on avoiding debt, not getting suckered into expensive contracts (think mobile phone, cable TV, car loans, etc.) and some basic life skills to try and make them aware of the consequences of their actions - if prison hasn't hammered that message home.
For the majority of inmates we're not talking about training them up to be the next super villain, just teaching them how to live without ending up back inside again.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @03:31PM
> Simple classes on avoiding debt [etc.]...
...would be salutary not only during, but before incarceration.