According to Dostoevsky, if you want to learn the soul of a society you should look at the treatment of its prisoners. Prisoner support is traditionally an important component of revolutionary organizing, and ultimately the conditions to be challenged are those outside the walls in the first place.
While at the Howell Farm , I got to know the manager of the Mercer County Correctional Center's jail farm. This was a program where short-timers got to go outside and work in a four-acre plot which produces vegetables for the local food bank and other community organizations. He gave me a summary of his visit to San Francisco County Jail which has recently opened a post-release facility where former inmates work growing vegetables for sale.
At some point in the distant future, I would like to form a team with people who know more about prison outreach and hybridize something like this with community gardening; a post-release farming or market-gardening enterprise operated under the auspices of a non-governmental community organization instead of a law enforcement agency.
The idea is manyfold; one priority would be to give prisoners some means of support which improves their chances of staying out.
Another objective would be to have released prisoners in a position of respect and visibility in their communities. Naturally there are many who would prefer to just bury their pasts, but more politicized and unbroken people might like having access to a role where non-prisoners have to deal with them in a positive way. This will help educate the community about conditions inside the walls, and may provide a point of entry for prisoner support work.
Finally, ex-prisoners should have an opportunity to take part in, and bring a sense of urgency to, their communities' struggle for economic self-reliance. They can develop skills that help themselves and others survive present-day living and more pronounced struggles in times to come.
this is a definite weak point. Mail me if you have some thoughts about this.