"When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry..."

After recently reading the book Newjack, by ethnographic journalist Ted Conover, my lingering interest in the US Prison System was brought to my moral/mental foreground. After being denied entry into some of the nation's top maximum security prisons, Conover decided to be hired, undercover, as a Corrections Officer at Sing-Sing prison (located just 5 hours Southeast of Rochester, in the Hudson River Valley). The one-year account of his experiences "walking the [prisoner] block" is extremely engaging and well written. His observation of racial discrimination, distorted punishment, and generally inhumane experience (on the part of both prisoners and guards) is astounding. I highly recommend this read to anyone seeking to learn more about the U.S. prison system.

For now, I offer a few key facts and figures I have come across in my cursory internet research of the US Prison System:



General Statistics

(Click on image above for better image definition.)

The U.S. has the highest prison population rate of 738 per 100,000 of its national population, compared to other democratic nations.

More than 1 in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison.

Class and Race

Many of us have heard of the extreme discrepancies in race and income when comparing the incarcerated population to the general population... Some quick facts:

One in nine black men ages 20 to 34 is incarcerated. That figure is 1 in 100 for black women between the ages of 35 and 39, compared with one in 355 for white women in the same age group.

For more figures on incarceration by race, check out this Interactive Map of the US:
Who goes to prison for drug offenses?

Women in Prison

From 1977 to 2003, New York State's female prison population increased by approximately 500 percent--This is twice the rate of males. A good portion of this increase can be attributed to the "war on drugs" , as officially declared by Nixon in the early 1970's, but which was also heavily supported by the Reagan and Clinton administrations, and still holds effective today.

As the Women's Prison Association reports: "Women in the criminal justice system are largely non-violent and not a risk to public safety. Typically, they are poor women of color who were arrested for drug-related crimes. Most have substance abuse histories, and are survivors of family violence and sexual abuse as well. Over three quarters are mothers and more than half have minor children at home."

Bringing it Home

Recently, I decided to meet with the Director of a local prisoner advocacy group, The Judicial Process Commission (JPC), to see how I might begin to do something, on both a personal and public level, about what is happening in our prison system. I now hope to attend their September training session in order to be a mentor for a woman in a local jail/prison. There is also talk, in the younger Rochester activist community, of hosting a prisoner correspondence program, while more pointedly advocating for prison reform and eventual abolition of the prison system as it exists today. Some friends and I will be meeting in a couple weeks to make plans for the coming year.

Finally, some of you might recognize the title of this blog post as a stolen lyric from Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues". Cash's lyrics seemed an apt way to introduce a discussion of our prison systems, as he sings from the point of view of the imprisoned person. That is, the statistics I have listed are really only a summary of millions of personal stories of suffering and injustice.

An Attempt to Grow Food

This spring, right before moving into together, my dedicated companion Jesse and I committed to an experiment we would attempt in solidarity: we would grow as much of our own food as possible- (limitations being space to grow, time, and energy!) Though we shared a plot in a community garden last season, this summer would be more serious: we expanded our growing space to include a back deck, sections of a communal backyard, and an additional plot in the garden.

Up until this weekend, we have spent at least 3 hours (more like 6) on Saturday or Sunday maintaining and nurturing the plants. This includes: watering (especially the containers because they dry out very fast), dealing with pests like aphids (which is typically taken care of by Jesse) and transplanting, seeding, and re-seeding.  Some of the more exciting projects we have going are potatoes in 5-gallon buckets, yellow squash and endless amounts of Swiss Chard. (Soon tomatoes will be abundant!) Our less successful attempts have been with peas (the slugs got to them before we did), spinach (it bolted when it got too hot) and Jesse's favorite- upside down tomato plants. 

I had hoped to keep a garden journal, starting in February when we ordered seeds but instead I decided to track just the results with a dinner log. Since June 20th (exactly one month ago), we have eaten 20 meals with fresh food from our garden (or on occasion from a friend or the farmer's market). Obviously the entire meal is not locally-grown or homemade but regardless, we feel successful thus far!

Some of our most interesting dinners have included: Pasta with Swiss Chard, tomatoes, garlic scapes, Italian Sausage, zucchini and onion; yogurt with foraged mulberries; a salad of peas, ricotta, baby greens, radishes, and cherry tomatoes; pasta with spinach, chickpeas, tomatoes, and garlic scapes and an arugula, peas, parsley, and mozzarella salad with a balsamic dressing.

If you want the recipes, let me know, most of it I adapt from cookbooks or create spontaneously so it won't be precise. 

I'll try to do another update next month when we may attempt some canning after I return from Virginia, where my family will help me practice the technique.

When Jobs Go Green - The Inaugural Post!

Friends, I hope you will jump in to discuss "Green Jobs" - the topic of our blog's first substantial post! I think it's one we can all relate to in some way, so chime in with your experiences, questions, insider knowledge or just general comments.


The burgeoning "Green Jobs" movement in the US promises no less than to "build an inclusive economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." That is the slogan of Green for All - an Oakland-based not for profit spearheaded by rising eco-celebrity Van Jones.

Although the concept is still somewhat amorphous, the momentum behind it is strong.

At the national level, Congress passed a Green Jobs Act as part of the 2007 Energy Bill. The Act essentially commits the Federal Government to funding worker training programs to meet the growing labor demand in the green and clean energy sectors.

The Act is unique in that it specifically calls for "green" skills training for some of the most economically marginalized Amerricans - ex-offenders, welfare recipients, inner-city youth, veterans, etc. After receiving $22.5M from the House in 2008, it now awaits Senate approval.

At the local level, Mayors and County Execs are being called upon to sign a "Green Jobs Pledge." This is the level where citizens, business-men, politicians and activists are all jumping in to create local Green Jobs initiatives and do the on-the-ground leg-work.



In Durham, NC, the Grassroots Energy Alliance (GEA) leads the charge with their "Black Brown Green Alliance." I've attended several GEA meetings. I have to admit - it feels really amorphous and inchoate right now. Their plan is to host a conference in September with Majora Carter as keynote speaker; that's when the "next steps" will be developed.

While GEA is building a coalition, others are simply starting projects. For example, the Asheville Youth Climate Corp is a fledgling initiative that will train teenagers for "green collar jobs." The Resourceful Communities Program where I intern has made grants for other similar projects in NC.

I generally like the Green Jobs concept, because it offers an inspiring vision, and takes a refreshing, proactive approach to the traditionally reactive environmental justice movement.

But I'm not totally convinced.

My main criticism of these Green Jobs initiatives parallels the basic criticism behind any workforce development program: there's no guarantee that the trainees will move into well-paid work in the private sector. Further, I don't think there is enough clarity on what differentiates a "green" job from a non-green job. The Apollo Alliance and other groups try to define green as specific sectors such as transit, construction, solar installation - but this seems a bit limiting and prescriptive to me. Plus, even in those sectors, not all jobs will be "green" - like a truck driver carting solar panels.

Anyway, I would love to hear all your takes.

I know there's stuff going on in Chicago (GreenCorp) and NYC (Majora Carter with Sustainable South Bronx). How about Madison? And any rumblings in Rochester?

What do you all think about this concept and how does it relate to work you do?

Blog on, friends!
besos, Audrey

TBE - The big experiment OR Test blog extremo

Friends, here is our big chance to do what we've been talking about for WEEKS now, ENTIRE WEEKS! ... That thing is, start a cooperative blog. We ecohouse girls we wouldn't have it any other way than communal. Or would we?

To reach our dream of having a social-justice, community blog where we can share good things we come across and gripe about the unbearable, here is a test site where we can mess around with formats, multi-person contributors and whatever other blogging foibles might trip us up.

Jess - I think since you and me seem to be the motivated bloggers, shall we take the initiative in messing around with this multi-blogger blog and working out the basic kinks? I was thinking we can start a completely new blog (uh, with a REAL name) before actually "going live". (Read: save your best posting material for that later date!)

OK, mess around with it! Off we go!

UPDATE - July 17: Turns out you can change the name, the template, even the web address, after a blog has already been started. So this is not only a "test" blog - it is THE blog!