Green Prisons, Reentry and the New Economy

Published October 15, 2009 @ 07:37AM PT

Today is Blog Action Day, and 8,624 bloggers around the world are writing about climate change -- covering this critical issue from countless perspectives, telling stories from the personal to global. I was happy to see climate change as the focus for today’s day of action, because it’s an issue that affects absolutely every one of us. Prisons, and prisoners, are not immune.

I’ve written before about green initiatives at prisons across the country and around the world -- from an urban farm at a Chicago jail to ecological practices and alternative energy production at prisons in Washington, California and elsewhere.

We shouldn’t only be green inside our prisons, however. We should create a green path out of our prisons. Corrections departments and facilities around the world offer many kinds of training for prisoners, including GEDs and college degrees, vocations like carpentry and plumbing and artistic talents like painting and video production. But prisons are too far behind the curve. Green jobs -- including earth-friendly construction and solar panel manufacturing and installation among many, many other specialties -- are certain to be booming in the years ahead, and prisons are a perfect place to teach these trades. Not only could prisoners work to retrofit prisons for lower energy consumption, but they can learn skills in the process.

This isn’t a new idea. Barack Obama wrote about it in Dreams From My Father. Van Jones, the former White House green jobs czar, has taken a leadership role on the issue. Organizations like Sustainable South Bronx and Jones' Ella Baker Center promote and provide green jobs training for the formerly incarcerated.

Some people argue that we shouldn’t expend resources on training prisoners and the formerly incarcerated to be ahead of the job curve, but these people are flat wrong. If we train prisoners in obsolete skills, we’re asking for a cycle of unemployment and poverty that leads to more crime. If we train them for the jobs of the future, we could be simultaneously saving our environment and ensuring opportunity after incarceration.

The green revolution is underway, and green jobs are a sure thing. We should include prisoners as we build this new economy.

Photo by Wayne National Forest

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Comments (8)

So true. Prison Industries is the perfect place to manufacture retrofit equipment as well as train those incarcerated in green related occupations.

Posted by Jennifer Perugini on 10/15/2009 @ 10:31AM PT
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Good post Matt, the vast majority of the imprisoned are uneducated and untrained to do much more than serve burgers at McD's. Very little training or educational opportunities are available within the system nationwide that prepares prisoners for re-entry into society mainstream. Few prisoners have ever had a bank account, paid a water bill, or been taught the minimal requirements for functioning in our society. The writer/lawyer, F.Lee Bailey, once declared, more than 20 years ago, that our prisons are nothing more than "colleges of crime". (The Defense Never Rests, forward). Unfortunately, we have not progressed much further in our treatment and training of prisoners since the book was released.

Even with the proper training and educational background, most prisoners find it next to impossible to get a job paying a decent wage as most employer's will not hire former prisoners, regardless of the crime they were convicted of. With this prevailing mindset among employers, it is especially difficult to reintegrate into society for ex-prisoners. Unless and until some serious changes (including increased funding) occur in the formation of training and educational programs for those we have condemned to the bastions of hate we have created (prisons), there will be no change and no chance for progressive resolution of the corner we have legislated our way into, imprisoning millions is NOT the answer to drug use.

Posted by mark schmanke on 10/16/2009 @ 05:32AM PT
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Matt:

A very thought-provoking post, and Mark's comment above makes a good point as well. I forget who said it (might have been F. Lee, Jesse Jackson, or Bill Clinton) that the best way to reduce crime is to create (good) jobs.

Unfortunately, until we can move past the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" mindset toward prisoners and parolees will shout down whatever the merits of training prisoners for careers in green jobs may have.

Mark

Posted by Mark Keating on 10/16/2009 @ 07:28AM PT
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Gret idea! Anything that gives prisoners hope for the future has merit. With Obama behind new jobs for a green future, this has a chance.

Posted by Joyce Gouwens on 10/16/2009 @ 02:12PM PT
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This issue is just as important as any others considering how many are incarcerated in our prisons.They are still people who need attention,training for the future to keep them from reoffending.Prison is a good place for programs,it helps to make offenders feel some normalcywhen they are released. e They paid their debt so when they are released they might take a better road in life than the road that took them to prison.I would like to hear about programs,training to deal with racial barriers that exist in prisons today.Some how changing racial ideaology would have a great impact on the rest of the culture of reoffenders.With out some kind of training there will always be those racial barriers which are now in our prisons keeping people apart,keeping them from growing and keeping the revolving doors open!

Posted by joseph cullinane on 10/16/2009 @ 03:40PM PT
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I have been looking for volunteer opportunities in the area of prisoner re-entry within the state of Arizona for years to no avail. I truly believe that job training is key - along with some type of gradual release program during which the prisoner is allowed to make a halfway decent wage. To be released from prison with $50, one set of clothing and a 30 day supply of medication simply breeds recidivism and hopelessness. Add to that the inability to find affordable housing due to a crime free community policy and the effort has failed before it started. Any information on positive programs available in Arizona would be greatly appreciated. Or maybe a way to start this project myself.

Posted by Sara Krekorian on 10/17/2009 @ 08:06AM PT
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Matt,

Jobs and training for people who have been incarcerated is a big problem throughout the nation, including in my home state of Oregon. Unfortunately in the last 10 years lawmakers and initiatives have pushed any kind of job training or rehabilitation almost completely off the table in favor of punishment. By taking the short view, these people have made it harder for inmates to get drug and alcohol treatment. Only now are we seeing some of the programs returning and it will take years to get them refunded.

Green jobs should be on the top of the list as well as using green energy in the prisons itself. If money can be saved through these programs, more can be put in to rehabilitation and help people stay out of trouble.

Posted by David English on 10/18/2009 @ 01:28AM PT
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The problem is, people don't care about rehabilitating prisoners, such as training them for jobs while incarcerated, that is until the shoe is on the other foot, then all of a sudden they care.

Looking at life from the other side, gives a person a whole different outlook on life.

Posted by Janet E on 12/27/2009 @ 05:56AM PT
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Matt has worked and volunteered in various capacities in criminal justice reform for several years. When he's not blogging, he works as the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project. Views expressed here are Matt's, and don't represent the positions of the Innocence Project.