PRISONS :: Food resources in economically challenging times

I am sure I have written about this before... where in this blog I don't know... but I have been thinking a lot about food issues, surviving on little, all the people out in the world who are having hard times with food access, and then wondering about prisons.  I have one son still in an OREGON prison.

For years I have been advocating that prisons need to raise as much of their own food as possible, as a hedge between a bad economy, budget restrictions, and disasters unknown to us at this time... like an EMP or other forms of terrorism.  Waiting until it has already happened isn't a good solution for a prison.

I also came across a book about women in farming and sent it to someone in prison as a possible option for her prison.  I suggested she start a farm there, for the prison, for inmates to buy from their own Farmer's Markets, for something to keep her busy until her release, with a great resume point.

When I was sharing with this female inmate, I started talking about gardens, then I realized every prison could grow enough chickens for their egg supplies (2 chickens for one person over the course of a year) and cooked chicken food needs.  I understand it takes about six months from chick to butchering size for the chickens we eat, and egg layers take some prep before they start laying eggs to eat.  

Egg layers only provide eggs for a few years I think.  I remember when I was younger they had "boiling chickens" at the markets, and I think they were the old egg layers.  Since big pots of soup are a good thing, and since you can boil a chicken for hours and hours and hours if you want, until it gets more tender, it could be a soup broth and a frozen prepped food option for later use.

I do remember reading somewhere that the two kinds of chickens are very different, so you have to buy them for what you need them to provide.

After I realized about chickens, I also realized you could add some turkeys for Thanksgiving and some pork for Christmas and other times of the year... bacon, sausage, loin, ham, rinds, and whatever else they make from hogs.  You could add at least one cow a year, or grow a small reproducing herd for the ongoing supply.

The idea is to make it a part of the prison... use it as a teaching tool, work experience, and helping inmates to grow their resume options.  Mentoring could happen on the way.  If you create a Farmer's Market option, inmates will learn the details of operating their own business INSIDE the prison, selling to other inmates as an event, and selling to their own commissary for everyone.  They could even negotiate contracts with their prison kitchen.

These could be the starting point, and the experience of staff and inmates could create even more opportunities.

• Gardens
• Chickens
• Turkeys
• Hogs
• Cows

You could add some occasional meats like sheep and goats, too.  It depends on the individual prison and what they will make room for.

We don't know the future, but our government is struggling in a zillion ways.  I don't think it would cost too much to start something that would be ready for an emergency and save food money down the line.  It would be part of the normal food budget anyway.

We don't want to have prisons without food in any kind of crisis... or even in their regular daily operations.

I hope someone will see this and think about it seriously.

In Christ,

Deborah Martin

http://work2gather.us

and more...

Monday, 22 FEB 2016 :: Reaching Inmates With Information

There are so many problems with our prison systems I can't solve, but I have thought about ways to make them better for inmates and our country.  I believe I have already shared how I would like to see INTERNET SALES bring income to both inmate and prison budgets.  It could change lives forever.  This blog, however, is about getting INFORMATION to inmates and their families.

I began to discover our penal systems when my sons became involved with drugs as teens, discovering it with the view of a parent and from the perspective of poverty.  People in poverty experience the world of prisons in a different way than those who can afford their own lawyers or hide their drug use inside cars or houses. Wealthy people don't have to resort to crimes to support their habits either.  These are just some of the reasons there are more poor people in prisons than those who have money.

I haven't searched for statistics to back up my claims, these statements come partly from my experiences and partly from things I have read and seen over the years.  Being the parent of someone in prison is a frightening experience.  There is nothing you can do to help them.  You have to focus your mind on anything besides the dangers of prison life :: gang issues, violence, sexual attacks.  You are always worried your child is suffering things they don't deserve, or becoming something worse than what they were when they went in, or going to die.  In prison, protecting yourself becomes a crime, increases your time in prison, and increases the problems being faced or overcome. 

Prison is such a hard place to experience as a family.

Like poverty, if you remain in it too long, it just makes things worse. 

Another problem I discovered in my years of struggle was how to keep that time in prison from becoming a total waste of life.  In my poverty, in my learning status, looking for a way through this challenge as a parent wanting to help their child, opportunities became difficult to find. 

• You discover the high costs of visiting, if you can even reach the place your loved one is at.
• Letters, photos, and copies of articles from different sources become the main vehicle to share the world with your inmate. 
• Stretching your budget is a monthly challenge when you try to send them some level of cash for things they need or want, things not provided by the institution. 
• You learn that shoes become an essential possession because they tell everyone else in prison there is someone on the outside that cares about them.
• You find out how little money is earned by inmates that have jobs, and how hard it can be to get and keep them.  
• If you can afford them, magazine subscriptions and books sent from approved vendors become your gift selections.  Newspaper subscriptions would be nice, but they are very expensive, too expensive for poor families.
• Mail-order education is not paper and pen and stamped envelopes anymore... finding affordable alternatives was impossible for me.
• In the middle of your difficult struggles, you discover all of this effort can be a wasted when your inmate is moved around the system.  Their belongings get "lost" so they have to start over at the new prison; there isn't mail forwarding so their subscriptions get "lost" even if they have only received one issue; your letters get returned; your undelivered orders get returned...

Information, keeping up with the world, focusing on positive opportunities -- these became my goal for my sons and I knew there had to be others who wanted the same things.  Information that mattered to the lives of inmates and their families seemed to be the easiest road to change, like education in small doses. 

My journey to bring this information into prisons began with the desire to know more of what my sons were doing in the places they were living in.  How to connect my desire to know more with the restrictions within prison systems made me think the solution would need to be internal, within the prison.

I started my effort by suggesting the Oregon prison system organize one or more inmate teams to create weekly subscription-based newsletters for family and friends of inmates.  Paid by quarters to make the cost affordable for low-income families and because of the prison practice of frequent moves, I thought it would pay for itself, provide wages for the inmates, and bring the world into prisons through news resources and the reporting process.  It could improve the education, intelligence, and perspectives of those inmates who were involved in creating it, and those reading it.  For continuity I suggested building a team with both lifers and other medium- and short-term inmates.  I even thought it could be published in small scale, within each separated prison building if possible, to expand the benefits I saw it having.  I never heard back from the Department of Corrections, and haven't heard of this being accomplished...yet.

Then I tried to think of something I could do in my retirement, on my own.  I called it "Letters to Inmates" and felt it would be like sharing the same letter with all those who subscribed (on their own or as gifts from others).  With a subscription base, it could be possible, too.

In the process of searching for answers, I added PRISONS to my Working Together programs and envisioned a global reach someday.  I discovered that some prisons in other countries are worse than any I have heard about in the US, even though news reports tell us we have more inmates than other countries.  I suspect there is something wrong with this claim.  In looking at world prisons, I wonder if it seems we have more inmates because other countries kill anyone they want to.  I have also seen prison documentaries on PBS that show entire families being in prison, children with their parents, usually their mother.  Prisons are a huge global challenge.

The information aspect of any Working Together outreach to prisons would required a printed newsletter for inmates, but online and email options might be achievable for friends and family.  INMATE NEWS was born to meet these needs. 

What is the dream for changing prisons with information?  Sharing what is currently being done within each state from the inmate perspective, creating a place where inmates can share ideas and opinions with each other, restricting advertising to programs and organizations that help inmates and their families, offer ways inmates can earn money for their needs.  Inmates need to know how technology is changing criminal arrests.

Reaching inmate populations is the real problem.  They seem to be a protected population, kept apart from the rest of the world. 

You can't buy an inmate mailing list

from the Department of Corrections.

 

I'm not sure if this separation from the world is to protect them, the public, or someone else.  Inmates become locked in the system, they become forgotten people.  Some have absolutely no one to care about them, send them a letter, buy them a birthday gift, give them money for everyday needs not provided otherwise, or anything else.  Their only "friends" become other inmates... which are not always healthy relationships, and their time in prison can be multiple years to decades.

It seems to me this lack of outside influence needs to be changed.

25 MAY 2015 :: Sentencing of a 14-year-old girl

I am in the process of entering several blog posts under different topics and I wanted to add a short message here about the 40 year sentence given to a 14-year-old girl who was jealous over a new baby in the house and drowned it  --  in a fit of rage, I suppose. 

I don't agree with the crime, but a 40-year sentence for a child!  We need to set limits on juvenile crimes, and try to rehabilitate young inmates instead of trying to put them out of our sight for unreasonable amounts of years.

Think about it...

• A temporary insanity plea would at least get her to a doctor that would work with her insecurities, and help her to better deal with life...which, I hope, would not take 40 years.
• Some people commit worse crimes and get a lot less time, as adults.
• Children simply cannot process events like adults and MUST NOT be treated as though they can.

We should have a prison system that will help her to recover her life and return to society.  Sticking her in our prison systems isn't going to help her, it will make her even worse.  Maybe they hope someone will kill her before the 40 years are over so she won't be back in society at all.

I cannot believe this sentence.  It is outrageous.  I cannot understand the logic, or the purpose.

Mandatory sentencing is not any better.  Each person's life, and crime, and potential for recovery, is different.  They need to be treated individually...in courts, in prisons, in rehabilitation efforts.

What kind of prison system do you want America to have?

I would like to see America lead the way in prison reforms that help inmates to change into the people they want to be, educated to achieve their better dreams, and able to earn money while in prison that will help them to change their futures on release.

9 APR 2015 :: An introduction to how I view prison issues.

I thought I had already posted in this blog, way back in January, but that was when I created the description statement in the title.  I can see that will need to be updated.  I don't know exactly what to share about prison issues, there is so much to be done.  In my own experiences, with two sons that went to prison because of drug and related theft issues, courts and prisons are a frightening thing. 

When my sons reached their teen years, everything changed. Their lives became a battle zone and my life became a nightmare.  As a parent in distress, my desire to recover their lives took a wide variety of turns.  Poverty prevents a lot of interventions that other budgets can access.  Finding poverty solutions to these intervention needs was a desperate effort, but there weren't many.  The ones I tried didn't work out.

A child that has run away is no longer a child. 

These children have discovered freedom, have been in charge of their decisions, and think of themselves as adults.  In many ways, they are.  We have no idea of the things they have experienced while away from us.  Parents may have legal responsibilities for a runaway child, but not the ability to stop them from leaving, from doing what they want, or from creating consequences that will last the rest of their lives.  Drug-affected children can't see what they are doing to themselves...and because they can't continue their freedoms when they return home, they don't return. 

I am thankful to anyone who helped my sons when they were beyond my ability to reach them, but most of the groups that are on the streets have the same issues and aren't going to lead them back to where they should be.  Juvenile detention units, jails, prisons, and rehab facilities, may dry them out, but if these loved ones don't see themselves as addicted, they become what is known as "institutionalized" --  they learn how to work the system, how to pacify those in charge over them, familiar with the survival requirements they have to learn.  Peers in prison are not the mentors a  parent wants for their child... mentors don't seem to be an option.

My hopes for my sons were for the things that would change the course of their lives from prison to self-respect and a prison-free existence.  If prison systems helped inmates to discover and overcome their addictions, improved their lost educations, taught them the daily-life skills they missed by leaving home at a young age, discovered their hidden dreams and showed them a way to achieve them, explored their abilities and opened up new dreams, paid them minimum wage so they could actually feel human, want to work, and allow them to see what their budgets will be like on release (and help them to save for that day), there might be hope the future would not mimic the past.

Visiting is critical to maintaining good relations with the world and family and potential mentors.  That means local access, local prisons for local residents.  In my quest for solutions, I decided a county facility approach would be the best.  If every county was required to house their residents, or inmates that will be released to their area because of family ties,  it would allow better community interventions for education, mentoring, training, work release, and visiting by those who love them.  As a poverty family, I am not able to travel hundreds of miles to visit my sons for a few hours.  With a county approach, the institution would be more easily accessible.  Visiting privileges also need to be taken off the menu of restrictions when there are problems between inmate and administration.  Visiting is essential to family recovery and provides a natural protection against inmate or institutional abuses.  Prisons can find other means of punishment for internal offenses.

At one point I felt that every single inmate needed to be busy every day with activities that would benefit them, improve the institution, and help the community.  Education is one of the greatest benefits an inmate can acquire.  The phrase I created to deal with this issue is :: 

The more you know, the better your decisions will be. 

 

I believe this is more true for inmates than any other population we know of.  When jobs are not possible, inmates need to be in classrooms discovering all the things they don't know, especially computer skills that are required for future job options.  I decided four hours was a minimum requirement and would set a better tone for each day.

Why do I believe inmates need to be paid minimum wage?  One reason is because it would prevent the state or county from turning inmates into slave labor.  Another reason is because it will give the inmate a reasonable budget to work with, incentive to do a good job, and self respect.  A minimum wage is pretty much all an inmate can look forward to.  As an inmate, it allows them to discover what their finances would be like upon release, including required payments of restitution, child support, and fines.  Income allows them to save for their release or larger purchases, allows them to provide for their own needs while in prison, allows them to participate in family celebrations and not become a burden to those who love them.

I suppose I could continue, but I will save some of my experiences and opinions for the future.  Throwing people in prison without addressing the issues that put them there will never solve the larger issues our society is facing.  We have to find a way to change the system to make it better.