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: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @01:25AM
It's kind of hard to be motivated when the schools focus almost entirely on rote memorization rather than real education. So, yes, I do remember such kids, but I also remember plenty of A students who thought they were actually accomplishing something impressive by getting good grades. Anyone can become a rote memorization monkey if they actually try, but it's just not very meaningful. I'm not sure why so many people in society will say that our school system is broken while simultaneously being impressed with high grades; that is a pure contradiction.