The Secret Behind New York's Alternative to a Prison Economy? Milk

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/secret-behind-new-yorks-alternative-prison-economy-milk



New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced this summer that he will be closing four more state prisons. Combined with two shuttered this month, that will bring the grand total of prison closures over the last two years to 13.

State officials say the rapid rate of prison closures is the result of sharp declines in the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses. They’ve dropped by 71 percent since 1996, from 24,085 to 7,053. Advocates attribute the decline to 2009 reforms of the infamous Rockefeller Drug Laws, and to efforts to end the NYPD’s controversial stop and frisk policy. Stop and frisk has overwhelmingly targeted young men of color and led to an exorbitant number of arrests for marijuana possession.

But Governor Cuomo’s move, which many prison reform activists are thrilled about, has been a flash point for residents of the upstate rural areas surrounding upstate penitentiaries who depend on prisons for jobs, as well as the elected officials who represent them.

Enter Milk Not Jails, an unusual intervention that draws from both the prison and food justice movements. Volunteer-run and based in New York City, the organization has worked closely with groups on both sides of the coin to present dairy farming as an alternative to New York State’s prison-dependent rural economies.